«Steve. Don't, Brad.»
«Priscilla died because nobody loved her. She dried up and collapsed inside and died like a poisoned rat. God doesn't love the world, He can't do, look at it. But I hardly seem to care at all. I loved my mother.»
«Me too, Brad.»
«A very silly woman, but I loved her. I felt a sense of duty to Priscilla, but that's not enough, is it?»
«I guess not, Brad.»
«Because I love Julian I ought to be able to love everybody. I will be able to one day. Oh Christ, if I could only have some happiness. When she comes back I'll love everybody, I'll love Priscilla.»
«Priscilla's dead, Brad.»
«Love ought to triumph over time, but can it? Not time's fool, he said, and he knew about love if anybody did, he was bloody crucified if anybody was. Of course one's got to suffer. Perhaps in the end the suffering is all, it's all contained in the suffering. The final atoms of it all are simply pain. How old are you, Francis?»
«Forty-eight, Brad.»
«You're ten years luckier and wiser than I am.»
«I've never had any luck, Brad. I don't even hope for any any more. But I still love people. Not like Steve of course, but I love them. I love you, Brad.»
«She will come back. The world hasn't changed for nothing. It can't change back now. The old world has gone forever. Oh how my life has gone from me, it has ebbed away. I cannot believe I am fifty-eight.»
«Have you loved a lot of women, Brad?»
«I never really loved anybody before Julian came.»
«But there were women, after Chris I mean?»
«Don't say his name, Brad, please. I wish I hadn't told you it.»
«Perhaps the reality is in the suffering. But it can't be. Love promises happiness. Art promises happiness. Yet it isn't exactly a promise because you don't need the future. I am happy now, I think. I'll write it all down, only not tonight.»
«I envy you being a writer chap, Brad. You can say what you feel. I'm just eaten by feelings and I can't even shout.»
«Yes, I can shout, I can fill the galaxy with bellowings of pain. But you know, Francis, I've never ever really explained anything. I feel now as if at last I could explain. It's as if all the matrix of my life which has been as hard and tight and small as a nut has become all luminous and spread out and huge. Everything's magnified. At last I can see it all and visit it all. Francis, I can be a great writer now, I know I can.»
«Sure you can, Brad. I always knew you had it in you. You were always like you were a great man.»
«I've never given myself away before, Francis, never gambled myself absolutely. I've been a timid frightened man all my life. Now I know what it's like to be beyond fear. I'm where greatness lives now. I've handed myself over. And yet it's like being under discipline too. I haven't any choice. I love, I worship and I shall be rewarded.»
«Sure, Brad. She will come.»
«Yes. He will come.»
«Brad, I think you'd better go to bed.»
«Yes, yes, to bed, to bed. Tomorrow we'll make a plan.»
«You stay here and I search.»
«Yes. Happiness must exist. It can't all be made of pain. But what is happiness made of? All right, all right, Francis, I'll go to bed. What's the worst image of suffering you can think of?»
«A concentration camp.»
«Yes. I'll meditate on that. Good night. Perhaps she'll come back in the morning.»
«Perhaps you'll be happy this time tomorrow.»
The morning brought the crisis of my life. But it was not anything that I could have conceived of in my wildest imaginings.
«Wake up, wake up, Brad, here's a letter.»
I sat up in bed. Francis was thrusting at me a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It had a French stamp. I knew that it could only be from her. «Go, go, and close the door.» He went. I opened the letter, shuddering, almost weeping with hope and fear. It read as follows.
Please please don't feel badly about me, don't be too sad or cross with me either. Forgive my ignorance of myself, forgive my worthless empty selfish youth. I can't quite now believe that you absolutely loved me, how could you have done. A mature woman would attract you much more deeply. I think that men like «youthful bloom» and so on but perhaps they don't really distinguish young girls much from one another and quite rightly, one is so unformed. I hope you don't think I behaved like a «loose woman.» I felt great feelings and at every moment I did what seemed unavoidable. I don't regret anything unless I hurt you and you won't forgive me. I must stop this letter, I keep saying the same things over and over again, you must be quite fed up. I am so very sorry that I went without saying good-bye. (I got a lift back to London quite easily, by the way. I'd never hitch-hiked before.) I felt I had to go, though I didn't think anything else just then, and since then it has seemed more sensible to keep on with that course rather than make more muddle and misery for everybody, though I terribly terribly want to see you. We will meet again, won't we, later on perhaps, after some time, and try to be friends, when I am a little more mature. That will be something new and valuable too. I feel now, especially as we go farther and farther south, that life is full of all kinds of possibilities. I do hope I shall manage with the Italian! Oh forgive me, Bradley, forgive me. I expect by now you just feel that you have had an odd dream. I hope it has been a good dream. Mine was. Oh I do feel so unhappy though, I feel all topsy-turvy. I don't know when I've cried so much. I have been so stupid and thoughtless. I love you with real love. It was a revelation. I don't unsay anything. But it wasn't part of any life we could have lived.
Julian
«Brad, may I come in?»
I was dressing.
«Is it good news, Brad?»
«She's in Italy,» I said. «I'm going after her. She's in Venice.»
The letter had, of course, been written for Arnold's eye. The bit about his «providing the stamp» made that plain. The girl was being supervised, virtually a prisoner. Of course she couldn't, as she said, «explain clearly.» She had continued writing a vague repetitive effusion, in the hope of being able to put in a real message at the last moment, hence the references to «not being able to end.» That had proved impossible. Doubtless Arnold arrived, read the letter and told her to complete it. Then he took it away and posted it. He would see to it that she had no money to buy stamps herself. However she had managed to tell me that she was writing under duress. She had also managed to convey her destination. «Snow and ice,» to which she had drawn attention, patently meant Venice. The Italian for «snow» is «neve,» and together with the reference to «Italian words,» the anagram was obvious. And in «topsy-turvy» language a little place in the mountains clearly meant a large place by the sea. And Arnold had mentioned Venice, though then to mislead me. Names are not uttered at random.
«Are you going to Venice today?» said Francis, as I was getting into my trousers.
«Yes. At once.»
«Do you know where she is?»
«No. The letter's in code. She's staying with a fan of Arnold's, I don't know who.»
I thought for a moment. «All right. You might be useful.»
«Oh good! Shall I go now and get the tickets? You should stay here, you know. She might telephone or you might get a message or something.»
«All right.» That made sense. I sat down on the bed. I was feeling rather faint again.
«And-I say, Brad, shall I do some detective work? I could go to Arnold's publisher and find out who his Venice admirer is.»
«How?» I said. The flashing lights were coming back and I saw Francis's face, all plumped out with eagerness, surrounded by a cascade of stars, like a divine visitation in a picture.
«I'll pretend to be writing a book about how different nationalities see Arnold's work. I'll ask if they can put me in touch with his Italian admirers. They might have the address, it's worth trying.»
«It's a brainwave,» I said. «It's an idea of genius.»
