able to «dilute» the power of her meeting with Arnold. But I did not think all this out immediately. I acted on instinct, wanting to know the worst.
The little street in Netting Hill where we had lived in our more recent previous existence had become a good deal lusher since those days. I had, of course, avoided it always. I saw now as I ran along the pavement that the houses had been glossily painted, blue, yellow, dusty pink, the doors had fancy knockers, the windows cast– iron decorations, false shutters, window boxes. I had dismissed the taxi at the corner as I did not want Christian to see me before I saw, her.
The sudden recrudescence of the far past makes one dizzy even when there are no ugly features involved. There seemed to be no oxygen in the street. I ran, I ran. She opened the door.
I think I would not have recognized her at once. She looked slimmer and taller. She had been a bunchy sensuous frilly woman. Now she looked more austere, certainly older, also smarter, wearing a simple dress of mousy light-brown tweed and a chain belt. Her hair, which used to be waved, was straight, thick, longish, faintly undulating, and dyed, I suppose, to a reddish brown. Her face was more bony, a little wrinkled, the faintest wizening effect as on an apple, not unpleasant. The long liquidy brown eyes had not aged or dimmed. She looked competent and distinguished, like the manager of an international cosmetic firm.
The expression of her face as she opened the door is hard to describe. Mainly she was excited, almost to the point of idiotic laughter, but attempting to appear calm. I think she must have seen me first through the window. She did in fact laugh, in a suppressed burp of merriment as I came in, and exclaimed something, perhaps «Jesus!» I could feel my own face twisted and flattened as if under a nylon-stocking mask. We got into the sitting-room which was mercifully dark. It seemed to look very much as it had used to look. Huge emotions like gauze curtains made the place breathless, perhaps actually made it dark. One cannot at the time name these things, only later can one press them away and give them names. There was a moment of stillness. Then she moved toward me. I thought, rightly or wrongly, that she was going to touch me, and I moved back towards the window, behind an armchair. She laughed, in a sort of crazy wail like a bird. I saw her uncontrolled laughing face like a grotesque ancient mask. Now she looked old.
She had turned her back on me and was fiddling in a cupboard.
«Oh Jesus, I shall get the giggles. Have a drink, Bradley. Scotch? I guess we need something. I hope you're going to be nice to me. What a horrid letter you wrote me.»
«Letter?»
«There was a letter addressed to me in your sitting-room. Arnold gave it to me. Here, take this and stop trembling.»
«No thank you.»
«God, I'm trembling too. Thank heavens Arnold rang up and said you were coming. I might have fainted otherwise. Are we glad to see each other?»
The voice was faintly steadily American. Now that I could see her more distinctly among the dark blurry browns and blues of the room I realized how handsome she had become. The old terrible nervy vitality had been shaped by a mature elegance into an air of authority. How had a woman without education managed to do that to herself in a little town in the Middle West of America?
The room was almost the same. It represented and recalled a much earlier me, a younger and yet unformed taste: wickerwork, wool-embroidered cushions, blurry lithographs, hand-thrown pottery with purple glazes, hand- woven curtains of flecked mauve linen, straw matting on the floor. A calm pretty insipid place. I had created that room years and years and years ago. I had wept in it. I had screamed in it.
«All right.»
«Your ma still alive?»
«No.»
«Unwind, man. I'd forgotten what a bean pole you are. Maybe you got thinner. Your hair's thinner but it's not grey, is it, I can't see. You always did look a bit like Don Quixote. You don't look too bad. I thought you might be an old man all bald and shambling. How do I look? Jesus, what a time interval, isn't it.»
«Yes.»
«Drink, won't you, it'll loosen your tongue. Do you know something, I'm glad to see you! I looked forward to you on the ship. But I guess I'm glad to see everything just now, I get a buzz from the whole world just now, everything's bright and beautiful. Do you know I did a course in Zen Buddhism? I guess I must be enlightened, everything's so glorious! I thought poor old Evans would never get on with the departure scene, I prayed every day for that man to die, he was a sick man. Now I wake up every morning and remember it's really true and I close my eyes again and I'm in heaven. Not a very holy attitude is it, but it's nature, and at my age at least you can be sincere. Are you shocked, am I awful? Yes, I think I am glad to see you, I think it's fun. God, I just want to laugh and laugh, isn't that odd?»
As I looked at her I felt that old fear of a misunderstanding which amounted to an invasion, a taking over of my thoughts. I tried to stare at her and to be cold, to find a controlled tone of voice which was hard and calm. I spoke.
«I came to see you simply because I thought that you would annoy me until I did. I meant what I said in my letter. It was not 'excited,' it was just a statement. I do not want and will not tolerate any renewal of our acquaintance. And now that you have satisfied your curiosity by looking at me and had your laugh will you please understand that I want to hear no more of you. I say this just in case you might conceive it to be 'fun' to pester me. I would be grateful if you would keep away from me, and keep away from my friends too.»
«Oh come on, Brad, you don't own your friends. Are you jealous already?»
The jibe brought back the past, her adroit determination to retain every advantage, to have every last word. I felt myself blushing with anger and distress. I must not enter into argument with this woman. I decided to repeat my statement quietly and then go. «Please leave me alone. I do not like you or want to see you. Why should I? It sickens me that you are back in London. Be kind enough to leave me absolutely alone from now on.»
«I feel pretty sick too, do you know? I feel all kind of moved and touched. I thought about you out there, Brad. We did make a mess of things, didn't we. We got so across each other, it spoilt the world in a way. I talked about you with my guru. I thought of writing you-«
«Goodbye.»
«Don't go, Brad, please. There's so much I want to talk to you about, not just about the old days but about life, you know. You're my only friend in London, I'm so out of touch. You know I bought the upper flat here, now I own the whole house. Evans thought it was a good investment. Poor old Evans, God rest his soul, he was a real bit of ail-American stodge, though he understood business all right. I amused myself getting educated, or I'd have died of boredom. Remember how we used to dream of buying the upper flat? I'm having the builders in next week. I thought you might help me to decide some things. Don't go, Bradley, tell me about yourself. How many books have you published?»
«I'll three.»
«Only three? Gosh, I thought you'd be a real author by now.»
«I am a real author.»
«We had a literary chap from England at our Women Writers' Guild, I asked about you but he hadn't heard of you. I did some writing myself, I wrote some short stories. You're not still at the old Tax grind, are you?»
«I've just retired.»
«You aren't sixty-five, are you, Brad? My memory's packed up. How old are you?»
«Fifty-eight. I retired in order to write.»
«I just hate to think how old I am. You should have got out years ago. You've given your life to that old Tax office, haven't you. You ought to have been a wanderer, a real Don Quixote, that would have given you subjects. Birds can't sing in cages. Thank the Lord I'm out of mine. I feel so happy I'm quite crazed. I've never stopped laughing since old Evans died, poor old sod. Did you know he was a Christian Scientist? He shouted for a doctor when he got ill all the same, he got in a real panic. And they were organizing prayers for him and he hid the dope when they came round! There's a lot in Christian Science actually, I think I'm a bit of a Christian Scientist myself. Do you know anything about it?»
«No.»
«Poor old Evans. There was a sort of kindness in him, a sort of gentleness, but he was so mortally dull he nearly killed me. At least you were never dull. Do you know that I'm a rich woman now, really quite rich, proper
