”Miles, things will never be the same again. Never, never, never.”
Miles undressed and got into bed. He lay beside his wife, rigid like her, on his back with his arms extended. Never, never, never. The black joy returned to him and stretched out his extended body upon a rack of ecstasy.
20
Bruno was holding Lisa’s hand. The curtains were pulled against the dazzle of the afternoon sun and it was shadowy in the room.
“You see, I’d like to know what I’m like.”
”Perhaps there isn’t any such thing, Bruno.”
”I want to get it into focus, what I really feel about it all.”
”One doesn’t necessarily feel anything clear at all about the past. One is such a jumbled thing oneself.”
”I’m a jumbled thing, my dear, an old jumbled bedraggled dislocated thing.”
”We all are. When one tries to get a really clear memory one’s usually doing it for some definite purpose, for revenge or consolation or something.”
”It does all go away-“
”Let it go.”
”But what really happened? What did Janie do to Maureen?”
”You can’t know. You may have been a very small interlude in Maureen’s life.”
”Oh. I suppose so.”
”You seem disappointed! But for so many people one is just a blind force.”
”But I wasn’t a small interlude in Janie’s life. I wrecked Janie’s life.”
”In the world things happen as they do happen. Think how much of it was accidental.”
”You mean-to let myself off?”
”The question doesn’t arise. There were the things that happened. But thinking about wickedness usually just comforts.”
”I was a demon to her.”
”Human beings are not demons. They are much too muddy.”
”I ought to have gone to her when she was dying.”
”There are things one can do nothing with. Try to draw a sort of quiet line round it.”
”I can’t draw a line round it. It’s myself. It’s here. It’s me.”
”You live too much in yourself.”
”Where else can I live, child?”
”Outside. Leave your self. It’s just an agitating puppet. Think about other things, think about anything that’s good.”
”An agitating puppet. Yes, I feel so tired out with waving my arms about.”
”Brooding about the past is so often fantasy of how one might have won and resentment that one didn’t. It is that resentment which one so often mistakes for repentance.”
”Do you know, there’s something that hurts me even more than not having gone to Janie.”
”What?”
”Being mocked on that landing by the lodgers.”
”You mean-?”
”When Janie went into Maureen’s flat and locked the door, you remember I told you-Well, no, I didn’t tell you, I left that bit out, it was too awful. When Janie made me take her to see Maureen, Janie went into the flat and locked the door against me and I could hear Maureen crying inside and I was knocking on the door, and the other lodgers in the house came down and mocked me.”
”Poor Bruno.”
”Something which ought to be quite unimportant turns out to be the most important thing of all.”
”A demon wouldn’t feel this. Don’t you see that you can’t get it all clear?”
”If there were God one could leave it to God.”
”If there were God one could leave it to God.”
”Do you believe in God?”
”No. Listen. Miles will be coming to see you. Be very quiet with him and don’t expect him to do anything for you.”
”I think I wanted him to go through some kind of ceremony, like a rite of exorcism. Funny thing, I’d forgotten, I’d just for gotten, how awfully much he irritated me!” They both laughed.
”Well, be kind to him, anyway.”
”You do love Miles, don’t you?”
”Yes.”
”He’s lucky. That girl who came before, your sister is it?”
”Yes.”
”Does she live with you?”
”Yes.”
”Miles doesn’t mind?”
”No.”
Lisa drew a cool ringless hand back over the soft damp fleshy folds of Bruno’s furrowed brow and down over the shiny bony dome of the skull to the ring of thin silky hair.
”I don’t horrify you, my dear?”
”Of course not.”
”I daren’t look in a mirror. You know that? And it must smell horrible.”
”No.”
”Very old people still feel sex, you know.”
”I know.”
”It gives me such joy to hold your hand.”
”I’m glad. I’ll tell you something you may not believe.”
”What?”
”You’re still attractive.”
Tears surged over the bulges of Bruno’s cheek and soaked into the huge spade-shaped expanse of grey hair, which was just beginning to look less like prickles and more like fur. The growth of hair was painful as it forced its way out through the fleshy folds and crevices of the tumbled face. But Bruno had not even tried to make Nigel change his mind about shaving him. It had soon begun not to matter.
”I must go now, Bruno.”
”You’ll miss Danby. He’ll be home in half an hour.”
”Never mind. You didn’t mind my coming unannounced?”
”No, it was a lovely surprise. A sort of-apparition.”
”Yes, a ghost.”
”A heavenly ghost.”
After the girl had gone Bruno lay back on his pillows and stroked his bearded face. He had had a moustache very long ago when he had been courting Janie. He had never worn a beard. How it pricked and tickled. Yet perhaps it was a good idea after all. It concealed the bulbous fleshy contours into which his face had collapsed. It might make him look more human. Of course the girl didn’t mean it, but how wonderful of her to say it. It had been a happy surprise, her visit, and now there were suddenly a lot of quite new and agreeable things to think about. It was good to find that there could still be pleasant surprises and absolutely new thoughts. Bruno said to himself, perhaps the doctor was serious, perhaps I might last out those years after all. He reached out his hand for
“I’ll kill Nigel.”
