The Book And The Brotherhood

`I don't feel I was married. It was all over so quickly. And poor James was like a ghost when he was alive.'

`Do you often think about him?'

`No. Not now.'

Rose felt she could not pursue this any further. She said, 'So there's no news from Gulliver?'

No,' said Lily, 'not a word. He's in Newcastle. Anyway that's where he said he was going. By now he may be anywhere, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Ireland, America. He's given up his flat, he's gone. He's disappeared forever, that's what he wanted to do, he often said so, to go right away and leave no trace.'

`I expect he'll write soon.'

`No he won't. If he'd been going to he would have done already. He said it would be an adventure. He's probably met someone else by now. I've lost him. Anyway I don't want him any more, to hell with him. I'll make a wax image of him and drop it in the fire – like – like a guy I saw on Guy Fawkes day, it was like a real person, it lifted its arms up, oh it was awful -' Tears came into Lily's eyes and her voice gave way.

Rose and Lily were walking round the garden at Boyars. It was evening, a damp fragrant evening, almost a spring evening, though the weather was still cold. Low storm clouds, thick, bulging, dark and yellowish, with brilliantly white serrated edges, were moving towards the east, leaving behind a clear transparent reddish sunset. It had been raining most of' the day, but now the rain had ceased. Rose and Lily were wearing overcoats and wellingtons. Lily had rung up Rose to lied if anyone had heard from Gull (which they had not) and had been rather tearful over the telephone. Rose, sympathetic, had invited her to Boyars. It was not in fact a very convenient time. Annushka, suffering giddy spells, was in hospital for some tests. Mousebrook seemed to be ill too, or perhaps just moping; after all he was really Annushka's cat. Boyars had a deserted feeling, as if the soul of the house, filled with foreboding, had already fled. Perhaps it knew that Boyars would soon be empty, ruined, or changed into a quite different house with a different soul. Rose, walking about in it, had begun to wonder whether she had ever really lived there.

The daffodils were in flower, a pale patch on the edge of the shrubbery. The crows, after spending the day in warfare with the magpies, were cawing upon the highest branch of a still leafless beech tree, outlined against the radiant red sky. Rose and Lily were walking along ⁱⁿ the wet grass beside one of the borders where early violets stained the earth beneath the budding shrubs.

`Tamar seems much better now,' said Rose, anxious to get Lily off the subjects of Gull and the supernatural.

The reference to Tamar did not seem to please Lily. Lily had been suffering pangs of conscience at the news of Tamar's `depression' or whatever it was, because she felt she had persuaded Tamar to take that irrevocable step. She had enjoyed taking charge of'Tamar, able to put her worldly wisdom, her specialised knowledge, her money at the disposal of the much praised little angel. Only later had she realised how grave the decision was which she had so blithely fostered. With that she began, as she never had before, to grieve over her own abortion, which had been such a happy relief to her mind at the time. She even reckoned up how old the child would have been if it had lived. She had lately received a note from Tamar enclosing a cheque for the amount which Lily had lent her. The covering note was brief, curt, no sending of love or good wishes or thanks. Perhaps Tamar now hated Lily for having persuaded her. Looking at the cold note, Lily felt near to hating Tamar for causing her so much regret and remorse. `I don't care for all that religion she's got into,' said Lily 'It's just a psychological trick, it won't last.'

Rose, who thought this too, said vaguely, 'Oh she'll be all right – she's a very strong girl really – she's brave.'

`I wish I was strong and brave and going to be all right,' said Lily.

`Mind you don't step on the snails,' said Rose. 'There's a snails' dance going on after all that rain.'

The grass, illumined by the sunset light, was covered widi glossy worms and wandering snails.

`I love snails,' said Lily, 'my grandmother attracted them, they came into the house. Of' course snails do get in everywhere, I found one in my flat the other day. My grandmothci could tame wild things, they came to her. She used the snails for telepathy.'

`How did she do that?' said Rose, who had heard quite a lot, indeed enough, about Lily's horrible grandmother who had the evil eye and whose name nobody dared to utter.

`To send a message to someone at a distance, each of you has a snail, and you tell your snail what you want to say, and the person with the other snail gets the message. You have to put a spell on the snails of'course.'

Rose wondered how much of this nonsense Lily really believed. They went into the house.

They had supper in the kitchen at the big kitchen-table which Annushka had scrubbed so much that the grainy wood had become a pale waxen yellow. Rose let Lily cook. They had an omelette, and some spiced cabbage which Lily had felicitously improvised, then cheddar cheese, and Cox's Orange pippins whose wrinkled skins were now yellower than the table. During the two days which Lily had spent at Boyars they had eaten frugally, drinking quite a lot of wine however. Mousebrook, stretched out into a very long cat on the warm tiles at the back of the stove, watched them with his baleful golden stare. Rose pulled him out and set him on her knee, stroking him firmly, but he refused to purr and soon twisted away and returned to his warm shrine. His fur, usually so electrically smooth, had felt dry and stiffened. After supper they sat with whisky beside the wood fire ⁱⁿ the drawing room. They were easy together. Rose felt increasingly fond of Lily, iliough her restlessness wearied her, and she was irked by Lily's continual attempts to prompt confidences. Lily had talked a lot to Rose about her childhood and about Gulliver. Rose had not reciprocated. But she was glad of Lily's company and touched by her affection. They retired to bed, at any rate to their bedrooms, early.

Alone in her room Rose stood at the window. A sick moon had risen among the rush of'ragged clouds. A car was passing along the Roman Road, its headlights creating faint flying impressions of walls and trees. Then it was gone and clouds covered the moon and the countryside was pitch dark and silent. Rose switched on the electric fire. In winter the central heating, switched off in much of the house when there were no guests, made little impression on the draughty spaces. Rose could feel the proximity of empty unheated rooms. She had been able to chatter with Lily but felt now, as she walked up and down, that the gift of speech had left her, a recurrent sensation as if her mouth were filled with stones. She was cut off, dumb, alone. The image of her stone-obstructed mouth and weighted tongue reminded her that that morning, visiting the stables to fetch apples, she had picked up one of Sinclair's stones. It was on the dressing table, a flat black stone banded with white lines with a long crack on one side, as if it were bursting open, showing a glittering gem-like interior. She held the stone in her hand and inspected it carefully. There was so much dense individuality, so much to notice, in the small thing. Sinclair, on some very distant day, had chosen it out of' thousands and millions of stones on some beach in Yorkshire, Norfolk, Dorset, Scotland, Ireland. The stone made her intensely sad as if it were demanding her protection and her pity. Was it glad to be chosen? How accidental' everything was, and how spirit was scattered everywhere, beautiful, and awful. She put the stone down and put her hands to her face, suddenly frightened of the darkness outside and of the quietness of the house. Suppose Annushka were to die? Suppose she is already dead, and the house knows it? The house was creaking in the wind like an old wooden ship. There were presences, footsteps.

I'm losing my nerve, thought Rose, I'm losing my courage, I'm losing my people. Jean has stopped loving me. How do I know that? Can it be true? Will I ever talk tojcan again, with openness and love, looking into each other's eyes? She said I was living in a dream world where everyone was nice and good and every year had the same pattern. I have never been deified by love. I could have married Gerard if I'd really tried. Then, as it had been suddenly sharply uttered in the room, she heard Crimond's voice say 'Rose!' as he had said it and so startled her when she came to him from Jean to make sure he had not shot himself. We've neither of us ever been married, love has to be awakened. Supposing I lose Gerard, Rose thought, suppose I have actually lost him? Can I lose him, after so many years? This is what this is all about, this press of ghosts.

In the last weeks, especially in the last days, it seemed that her relations with Gerard had simply broken down. Reeve, now back in Yorkshire, kept-ringing up, asking her to decide about the cruise. Rose kept giving evasive answers. Yet why should she, why did she feel she must consult Gerard's convenience, why should it matter to him if she were absent for four weeks with her family? Blood was thicker than water. But the thought of Gerard not minding what she did or where she was, touched her with deadly cold as if one of Lily's ghosts had brushed past