Clement entered the hallway of his house to find a suitcase standing there.
The time was just after five, and, as it was raining, he had taken a taxi home from King Edward Street. The rain, slight at first, no more than a whisper round the city, had persisted, gradually raising its voice, as roofs of colleges, pavements, and multitudinous gutters added their liquid commentary, until water everywhere was pouring into the many throats of the Isis and Cherwell in a continuous shout. Clement didn’t like noise or wet; he phoned Luxicars to drive him home.
His mind was so taken up with thoughts of a College meeting he had to attend that evening that he allowed the suitcase little attention. At first assuming without great surprise that Michelin had returned, he was almost past it when he realized it belonged to Sheila, although it was not one of her special green Green Mouth cases.
‘Sheila!’ he called.
She came immediately out of the living room as if she had been waiting for him. She was dressed in what he thought of as her London clothes, a rather pretentious new costume consisting of a deep blue wool wrap top over a blouse and emphatic gabardine trousers, with a mock tortoiseshell necklace wrapped twice about her neck. Her face was strained and anxious.
‘Clem, I don’t want you to say anything. I’m going. I’m leaving. Please don’t say anything. I can’t explain. I don’t want to hurt you, but this has to be.’
‘It’s raining.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it. Please don’t try to stop me. I don’t like doing this.’
They stared at each other.
‘Do you mean – you’re leaving me for another man?’
‘Don’t ask me questions. It’s all over, Clem. I can’t help it.’
‘Is it that fellow Arthur Hernandez?’
She hesitated, as if contemplating a lie, and then said, ‘He gets into Heathrow early tomorrow morning. I’m going to meet him.’
He felt himself to be quite calm, chiefly because he could not believe what he heard. Pushing past her, he walked into their living room and set down on the table the little greasy package Captain Parr had given him. Then he turned to her again – she had followed him in.
‘You’re trying to tell me you’re leaving me for that little wretch you met in Boston?’
‘I’ve known him for some time. We’re terribly compatible. I don’t have to explain anything to you.’
‘Has this got to do with Michelin?’
‘Of course not. I loved her and I’m sorry she has cleared off. You’ll have to look after yourself. A car’s coming for me.’
‘Now you’re clearing off.’ He found he had difficulty swallowing. ‘This is a delusion. It’s part of your fantasy life, Sheila. You want to be Green Mouth all the time, and it can’t be done.’
‘I thought you’d say something like that.’ She sounded miserable. ‘You were bound to say something like that, weren’t you? That’s why I will not discuss the matter with you. There’s plenty of money in the bank; you won’t go short.’
With trembling hands, Clement unwrapped the papadoms and held the package out to his wife.
‘Would you like one?’
As she shook her head, he said, looking down, ‘Please don’t leave me. You’re so dear to me. You always have been, ever since we met. Who’ll find you as dear as I do? There’s so much stored between us, stored up against winter and bad weather … Our relationship has been so intense – well, I thought so – to break it now would injure you as well as me.’
He bit one of the papadoms and tried to chew it.
‘Don’t be a fool, Clement, those things aren’t cooked. I have to do this. I’m not your little lost girl any more. I’m independent. I want to live, be free – I’m just sick of our relationship. I want to see something of the world, travel, meet new people. Put those disgusting things down.’
‘You know I don’t like Indian food.’ He put the bitten papadom down and removed the piece he had chewed into his handkerchief. She looked on, unmoving, in contempt. ‘Sheila, we know what happiness is – let’s not lose it.’ He spat into the handkerchief.
‘I’m trapped. I feel trapped. I want to get away and meet new people.’
‘Perhaps it would be useless to tell you that you really don’t.’ He looked at her searchingly. ‘You’re happier in your fantasy world. You just have to decide where its boundaries lie. I know I have many deficiencies, Sheila; I’m all too aware of them, but by now you are used to them – hardened to them – and against them you must set the fact that I love you as much as ever I did – no, that really we love each other as much as ever. It’s a miracle, and it is real. Ours is the most enormous luck. You’re my life. Shall I tell you how eagerly I open my eyes in the morning to see your face again, how I miss you if—’
‘No, you shan’t tell me. You’re always telling me things. I knew it would be like this. I should have left before you returned, but I wanted to do the decent thing. I couldn’t just leave a note like that bitch Michelin.’ She glared at him from her position of immobility as he paced about the room. ‘To hell with it, to hell with you, you and your claims on me. I want to be free, to be my own self for once—’
‘You mean you want to go off with that seedy little Spaniard!’
‘All right, call him names. Art’s American, anyway, not Spanish. Art has capabilities you’ve never dreamed of. Look at you – you’re more interested in your dead brother than you are in me. That’s what you like, you feel safe dealing with the dead. Your whole life you’ve kept people at arm’s length. You’ve kept me at arm’s length—’
‘Sheila, careful, some words can destroy a marriage.’
‘So can some silences. Now I’m speaking out. This is my turn, at last. Art is a wonderful talker, just as he’s a wonderful lover. Yes, I am going to go off with him, to be an equal partner. He’s flying over to get me. I’m going to escape at last from under your wing, if you want to know – rejoice in being a free woman.’
He sank down on the arm of the chair during this speech but, in his pain, immediately stood up again.
‘Oh, it’s being a free woman, is it? You’ve been talking to Maureen too much. This is her idea. She dominates you far more than I do. Your problem’s not me or this Spaniard, it’s feminism. Can’t you see that we’ve got a good equal partnership here? Don’t let all the Maureens in the world persuade you otherwise.’
Her face was dark. ‘You keep bringing Maureen into the conversation. Don’t think I don’t know you had an affair with her, just when I was at my most wretched. What right have you got to criticize me?’
‘That was ages ago, best forgotten.’ Hostility was naked between them now. The swords were out. They were on the battlefield.
‘Well, I haven’t forgotten it. You do what you like now – and I’m going to do what I like.’
‘If you leave here now, you never come back! I warn you.’
‘I don’t want to come back. I’m sick of the damned place, sick of Oxford, sick of you!’
‘And I’m glad you’re going!’
The front doorbell rang, signalling from another world.
‘Don’t answer it,’ Clement said. ‘Bugger them.’
‘Shut up,’ Sheila said. She went through to the front door, and in a moment Cheri Stranks was in the living room with them, smiling and silently confused, pretty as a peacemaker and scenting blood in the air.
‘I’m sorry, do tell me if it isn’t convenient. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. Are you going away?’
‘Just for the weekend,’ Clement said, shooting a glance at Sheila. ‘Come in, come in. How are you keeping, Cheri? No signs of the baby yet?’
‘We’re going to London,’ Sheila said, with a ferocious look at her husband, as if adding under her breath, ‘And you’re going to hell.’
‘Oh, I expect you’re going to the opera,’ Cheri said. ‘I thought I’d just drop in and see you.’ She gestured to the road, where the blue Zastava Caribbean stood out in the rain. ‘Sorry to butt in. I wondered if I could help in any way, really in any way at all. Arthur told me you’d lost your housekeeper. Can I give a hand? I was passing this way.’
‘Thanks very much, but—’ Clement began, when Sheila cut him off, moving forcibly in front of him and saying, as she took Cheri’s arm, ‘That’s very kind. Very kind. We are in a bit of a pickle, as it happens. The surface of the pool hasn’t been skimmed today – that was always Michelin’s morning job. And I’m afraid there’s a stack of washing-up. If you could help …’
She manoeuvred the younger woman out to the back, shut the door on her, and returned, picking up a brown wool coat from an armchair, throwing it across her arm in a business-like way.
‘There you are. There’s someone else to see to all your needs. You always land on your feet, don’t you, Clem? Now I’m off. A car will be round at any moment. I think I hear it now.’
He caught her arm. ‘I love you, Sheila, please don’t go. He’s not worth it.’
‘He’s worth it to me, and that’s all that matters.’
‘But you don’t know,’ he said desperately.
‘I’m going to find out,’ she said, with a kind of grim gaiety, but he plunged on. ‘Listen, you are always pretending to everyone that you had a happy childhood. I never contradict you, do I? I know how you live in this fantasy world. Well, you’ll smash it all up if you aren’t careful, and then you may not like reality when it hits you.’
‘I’m not on your couch any more, and I can look after myself. I’m not one of your fucking sick, though you may like to think it.’
There was a car at the door, and the rain was stopping.
‘I didn’t mean that, Sheila. Please don’t go, please don’t leave me!’
She had opened the front door. A uniformed chauffeur was approaching up the path. She snatched up her suitcase, but he smiled professionally and took it from her. She walked down the path behind him, not looking back. The rain petered out. Eaves were dripping. Alice Farrer appeared in her front garden and pretended to prune something. The suitcase was stowed in the boot of the car, the door was opened for her. She got in. The chauffeur got in. The car moved forward down Rawlinson Road. He stood there in the doorway, staring, hoping she would wave. She did not wave.
He was lying flat on the couch in his study, thinking of the years that had gone by, so many, so soon, when there was a cautious knock on the door and Cheri Stranks entered.
‘Are you all right, Clement! I wondered if there was something wrong?’
Faintness had overcome him. He smiled, a mockery of a smile, and sat up, planting his feet carefully on the floor.
‘Aren’t you well? You do look a bit sick. Can I get you a gin or something?’ She looked alarmed. She was a well-built girl, today allowing the world a glimpse of her good legs, her jeans having been discarded for once in favour of a tight black skirt. The best feature of her face, a certain pleasing sharpness, was more observable in profile than from the front. Her eyelashes, thick and artificially darkened, framed two lively brown eyes. Her hair was brown and floated freely about her face; there was nothing of the Scrubbing Brush mode which afflicted her husband.
‘Sheila’s left me,’ he said, adding, so that there should be no mistake, ‘for good.’
She came closer. As yet the pregnancy did not show.
‘I can’t credit it. Left you – at her age!’ Immediately realizing her error, she went on, ‘I don’t mean she’s old at all, it’s just that …’ But the damage was done, and in a moment she stopped speaking. ‘It’s a real bummer, and I’m sorry. Arthur and I have always admired you as the sort of couple …’
Again she stopped. Clement saw how ancient he was in her eyes, and that she had come round, perhaps with some urging from Arthur, to see if there was anything to be done for this poor old couple. He stood up and tried to show a little vitality, but reaction to the scene with Sheila had set in, making him tremble and look older than ever.
He cleared his throat. ‘It is a bummer, you’re right. Whatever a bummer is, it’s this. Oh, I’m sure she’ll come back.’
‘But your wife’s so famous. Everyone’s read her books. Has she – I mean, did she say why …’
‘She’s leaving me for another man, Cheri. He’s younger. He’s flying over from the States to meet her. He’s got the same name as your husband, Arthur. He edits books in New York. Well, he’s Sheila’s editor, as a matter of fact. He stands about five feet nothing. And that’s all I know.’ He laughed feebly, holding his forehead.
‘Perhaps you’d rather I went.’
‘I expect you’d rather go.’ He held out a hand to her. ‘It was sweet of you to come round, Cheri.’
She took his hand and almost immediately let it go in embarrassment.
‘I couldn’t have come round at a worse time, could I?’
Recovering from her startlement, she was now beginning to enjoy the situation, as he could see.
‘I’m glad you’re here. Come down and have a drink with me.’
She looked sceptical, but accompanied him as he made a rather shaky way downstairs. They sat in the kitchen; she drank a white wine and Perrier while he sipped a deep brandy. She sat with her legs crossed. She wore patterned net stockings.
‘I suppose in your profession – well, such things are pretty common,’ she said, breaking a silence. ‘Marriage bust-ups and so on.’
‘I had an elder brother. He died earlier this year. He had a fear of desertion. Perhaps that was the biggest fear of his life. His mother – our mother, I should say – deserted him when he was a small child. She came back, but she always held the threat of desertion over him. It is a terrifying thing to do to a sensitive child. By the time I came on the scene I got better treatment; my mother’s neurosis was in remission. But somehow that fear of desertion by the one one most loves has rubbed off on me … I wasn’t at all prepared. Well, one never is …’
‘My parents never got on too well. Always rowing. There were five of us kids.’ They talked for a little while, but, despite her evident intelligence, it was an unequal conversation.
‘I’ll have to get back to Arthur. He needs the car this evening. He’s got to go over to Abingdon, to a meeting. Why don’t you come back and have supper with us?’
‘You’re enormously kind, Cheri.’ And more than kind, he thought, but of course not always kind. She would have her moods too, docile as she might seem now. She had rested her soft right hand on the table, and he saw there were gilt rings on each of its fingers. It was a beautiful hand, the nails of which were enamelled shell pink. At present that hand slept as far as he was concerned, after its little exercise in being held out to him. And it was accustomed to beckoning husband Arthur towards her. But the day might come – who could tell? – when the hand would be raised with all the force of a policeman’s to halt Arthur’s approach, or to catch another passing man. And then the dainty nails would appear more like claws, and no doubt heart’s blood would flow. But there was no denying it, at this moment she was enormously kind, though the hand could never reach out and touch him with the warmth of Sheila’s.
‘We’ve always admired you, Clement, ever since you came with us to the Tina Turner concert and enjoyed it so much. Generally speaking, your age group doesn’t go a bomb on rock’n’roll. Don’t say no, have supper with us. It’s macaroni cheese.’
‘No, I’ll stay here, thanks. I’d rather. Another time.’
She looked hard at him, then offered a smile. ‘You’ll be okay?’
He laughed. ‘I won’t do anything desperate. Promise.’
When she had gone, he walked about the house, brandy glass in hand. He picked the packet of papadoms off the living room table and threw it in the waste bin.
A plan formed in his mind. He could phone Swain Books in New York and get the number of Arthur Hernandez’s flight. He could check with Heathrow and find what time it landed the next morning. Then he could drive up to Heathrow and shoot both him and her as they came out of Terminal Three.
However, he did nothing. He sat in Sheila’s favourite chair, as unmoving as she generally was, going over the dreadful scene in his mind, trying to analyse it. In retrospect, he was able to appreciate the tension and apprehension in her.
It was his own fault. It was his own fault that Sheila’s hand, the hand that typed all the stories about the fantasy world of Kerinth, had been raised against him. He had never expressed his love enough; oh, he had done all that a husband should or could and possibly more; but Sheila lived by words as well as deeds; her real world, like her fantasy one, must be largely built of words and the need of them. It was a human need. He had never said to her – for instance – for instance, for he was putting himself to an inquisition – he had not talked enough about her novels. He had defended them and her against the prejudiced, had at times been fierce as a tiger. But he had failed to like them, or perhaps just failed to take them seriously enough for her taste. Arthur Hernandez, now – there was a man who took the damned books seriously, who could be said, in his position, to be almost dependent upon them. Creature of Kerinth. The title rose spontaneously to mind. He had emerged, her Latin hero, sparkling from the sugary foam of her fantasy. And there was nothing Clement could do about that.
‘I must not fall into the trap of blaming myself,’ he said aloud. He stood up and sat down again. She was so dependent on her audience. He had seen that in Boston, without realizing all its implications. The novels, which had begun as a substitute for the dead daughter, for little Juliet, had become a substitute for other relationships. She loved Clement, but even more she needed her audience, those warm hearts who found no fault with the Kerinth fantasies and who sent her presents and cards and love. Arturo Hernandez was merely an embodiment of that audience. Rises and falls in sales were received by her as the ardour or coolness of a lover. And here – winging across the Atlantic even now – was the man who had his finger on those sales, the maestro of salesmanship, the astute commercial little man of Swain who had not one word of adverse criticism to offer as long as the product was right.
‘I could have warned her.’
But of course that was impossible. People were not to be warned. He had encouraged her by keeping quiet. He had profited by the enormous worldwide sales. After the poverty of his childhood, had they not been ever welcome?
Besides, keeping his trap shut was a habit. Analysis had not changed that. It had appeared that his habit of holding back had been agreeable to her, one of the reasons they had been happy together. Instead of holding back, he should have held her when she tried to go, have been more physical, as Joseph would have been.
And why had Clement held back? What had kept him from ever saying enough to her? Of course it went back to childhood, as everything did eventually. His thoughts returned to that old dull time, as an escaped prisoner’s thoughts must return to his cell. His older brother and sister not wanting him about; then their sudden absence as they got sucked into the global war. His parents, committed to tedious work, rendered more tedious by their religion. Brought up strictly, with everything in short supply. Not like now. The endless preaching that people were wicked and sinful, that happiness was reserved for some vague after-life, and then only for a few, a minority to which he could never persuade himself that he might belong. The conviction that the world was a vale of tears and God had it in for him. The sense that his parents saw it God’s way.
Why had he gone in for analysis, if not to banish that diseased vision of life? How delighted he had been when, in his teens, he had come on one of Freud’s works dismissing religion as neurosis. It had led him on like a torch to new thoughts, new ways of life, better ways.
But, despite his analysis in Berlin, despite the easy adult life he had lived, so full of surface pleasure, that infernal picture set up in childhood had evidently persisted. He had known secretly that life was grim, and had its revenge on those who smiled and drank wine and made love, and that one day … one day, unsuspecting, a man would discover that the whole easy fabric would be torn from the place where he lived, to reveal the bare stones of misery. And those who had lived the easy bourgeois life would feel it worst, and be flung down hardest.
What was he going to do now? What was left for him? His father would have said, glowing with schadenfreude, as his way was, ‘That’s what you get …’
That’s what you get … As if the phrase contained a profound truth, beyond which nothing could fruitfully be said.
He wished he had told all that to pretty Cheri, a little earlier, to warn her. There must be some way of warning people what to expect.
That’s what you get … He found he was standing looking at his widespread hands, as if to convince himself that what he got was nothing. He ran upstairs, ignoring the pain in his leg, and stared into Sheila’s study, assuring himself she was not there. Everything in the clotted cream factory was as usual, except that the room did not live without Sheila’s presence. It had become a photograph of itself. On the rear wall, the large painted mazooms and crichts, inhabitants of Kerinth’s moon, stared at Clement with their large cat eyes. That’s what you get, they said.
He went listlessly downstairs again, wandering about, wondering what could possibly be done. It came to his memory that he had arranged a party for Thursday evening. Friends would be arriving at six o’clock to celebrate Sheila’s return from the States and to drink to her new novel. He dismissed the thought irritably. He would worry about that in the morning. There were more important issues to worry about. Of course he would be disgraced; he took that for granted. Going to the patio windows in the rear of the house, he looked at the dull evening trapped between the walls of the garden. The sun, striking through a band of cloud over Walton Street, lit the maple in the Phillips’ garden nearby so that all its wet leaves gleamed. Its shadow fell on the Winters’ garden. The swimming pool lay motionless, its surface blank as a sleeping face.
He felt a sudden unity with Joseph, who had been pursued by a fear of desertion for ever after his mother’s betrayal, and had fought the fear, leading as vivid an existence as possible – preferably in the Far East, as distant from the scene of the crime as could be.
He saw more clearly than ever that it was not only the desertion and that expulsion from the family home on the day – the very hour – of Ellen’s birth which had so scarred Joseph, but the way in which those heedless acts had come as confirmation of a whole prior history of maternal deprivation, dating from his birth, that birth over which the steel-engraving angel had presided so decisively.
The dreadful thoughts would not allow him peace. He could no longer bear to stay in the house alone. Bursting through the silent rooms as if pursued, he ran out of the front door, slamming it behind him – to the evident satisfaction of both Farrers, alert in their front garden – and walked with uncharacteristic rapidity in the direction of the Woodstock Road and Wolvercote, as if all the steel-engraving angels in the world were pursuing him.