at work, must have been at work, within that seemingly thoughtless joy-of-presence. I had, half hidden from myself, terrible purposes. My problem was simply how to keep Julian forever. And although I had said, to myself and to her, it is impossible, I knew at the same time that having once been with her in this way I could not now surrender her. The problem of keeping her had once, inconceivably long ago, seemed like the problem of persuading myself that it would, in spite of everything clearly to be said against this, be right to accept her generosity and take every possible advantage of it. But by now the problem had become, within the quiet self-concealed flow of my relentlessly purposive ratiocination, something much more blackly primitive, something which was scarcely problem or scarcely thought any more, but more like a sort of growth in my mind.
I had of course already decided not to tell Julian about Priscilla's death. If I told her I would have to go back to London at once. And I felt that if we left our refuge now, if we parted now, with our flight unconsummated, the process which would ensure our liberation from doubt and our eternal betrothal might never take place at all. It was something which, for both of us, I had to do, it was my destined ordeal to keep silent in order to bring us both through this darkness. And it must be done now in unbroken continuity with what had happened. The love-making was part of this. I could not and would not chill Julian's young blood now with this tale of suicide. Of course I would have to «discover» it soon, we would have to go back soon, but not yet, not without my having reached that point of decision which seemed so close and which would enable me and make me worthy to keep her forever. There was nothing I could do for Priscilla. My duty henceforth was to Julian. The sheer pain of the concealment was itself part of the ordeal. I wanted to tell Julian at once. I needed her consolation and her precious forgiveness. But for both our sakes I had for the moment to do without this.
«What ages you've been. I say, look at me and guess who!»
I came in through the porch and blinked in the comparative obscurity of the sitting-room. At first I could not see Julian at all, could only hear her voice coming to me out of darkness. Then I saw her face, the rest obscure. Then I saw what she had done.
She was dressed in black tights, black shoes, she wore a black velvet jerkin and a white shirt and a gold chain with a cross about her neck. She had posed herself in the doorway of the kitchen, holding the sheep's skull up in one hand.
«I thought I'd surprise you! I bought them in Oxford Street with your money, the cross is a sort of hippie cross, I got it from one of those men, it cost fifty pence. All I needed was a skull, and then we found this lovely one. Don't you think it suits me? Alas, poor Yorick-What's the matter, darling?»
«Nothing,» I said.
«You're staring so. Don't I look princely? Bradley, you're frightening me. What is it?»
«Nothing.»
«I'll take them off now. We'll have lunch. I got the watercress.»
«We won't have lunch,» I said. «We're going to bed.»
«You mean now?»
«Yes.»
I strode to her and took her wrist and pulled her into the bedroom and tumbled her on the bed. The sheep's skull fell to the floor. I put one knee on the bed and began to drag at her white shirt. «Wait, wait, you're tearing it!» She began hastily undoing the buttons and fumbling with the jerkin. I pulled the whole bundle up and over her head, but the chain and cross impeded them. «Wait, Bradley, please, the chain's got round my throat, please.» I dug in the snowy whiteness of the shirt and the silky tangle of her hair for the chain and found it and snapped it. The clothes came away. Julian was desperately undoing her brassiere. I began hauling down the black tights dragging them over her thighs as she arched her body to help me. For a moment, still fully dressed, I surveyed her naked. Then I began to tear my clothes off.
«Oh Bradley, please, don't be so rough, please, Bradley, you're hurting me.»
Later on, she was crying. There had been no doubt about this love-making. I lay exhausted and let her cry. Then I turned her round and let her tears mingle with the sweat which had darkened the thick grey hairs of my chest and made them cling to my hot flesh in flattened curls. I held her in a kind of horrified trance of triumph and felt between my hands the adorable racked sobbing of her body.
«Stop crying.»
«I can't.»
