The Book And The Brotherhood

know I'm a little worthless person, but I want to be in your life. For all I know you have hundreds of Lilies, little people who want to serve you, all right, but I'm me, and I exist for you and I know that I do. I told you about that dance last year. Whatever happened you know I meant well. I feel I'm a sort of'messenger in your life. After all I've known you a long time. I'd do anything you wanted, I'd be your slave, I want to give myself to you as a total present, I don't care what might happen, all I want is to know that you accept me as someone you could rely on for ever and use in any way you pleased. I feel this as a vocation, as if I'd been told by God, you are an absolute for me, I can't do anything but give myself. If you can only accept me I'll be silent, I'll be invisible, I'll be as quiet as a mouse -sorry, you don't like mice – but I just want to be there, like something in the corner of the room, waiting for anything that you want me for -'

Crimond, who had been listening to this with a slight frown, holding his spectacles against his lips, said, 'I don't,like this stuff about little people and your being a little worthless person. You area person, not a little person. I don't like that terminology.'

Crimond seemed to be making a general point, and nothing to do with her personally, but she said eagerly, 'I'm glad you don't think I'm worthless – I'd study, you could teach me -'

`Oh Lily, just get back to reality, will you.'

`You are my reality.'

`You know you're talking idle nonsense, just something that you want to get off your chest even if it makes no sense. Now you've said it perhaps you'll kindly go away.'

`I can't go away,' said Lily. She had been talking fast and eagerl^y, but calmly. Now her voice sounded in her cars with that dreadful hysterical edge to it. 'I won't go away. I'm sure you have some special feeling about me. You must be kind to me. Can't you even be kind when I love you so much? How can there be so much love and it simply go to waste? I must have something from you, like a pact, a kind of status, anything, even a very very small thing, which is between us for always.'

Crimond, his gaze straying from her as if wearily, gave a sigh. 'Lily, I can't attach any sense to what you ask. You speak as if I could easily give you something very valuable -'

`Yes, yes, easily, you could, you could!'

`But I haven't got this thing, this special feeling, I don't want you as a slave -'

`Then I wouldn't be -'

`Or an invisible object in the corner of the room, or a mouse, I don't like things like that, I couldn't have such a person near me, and I can't give you any sort of 'status' as you put it, I just don't have any special feeling for you or any special role for you – I'm sorry.'

Lily, controlling tears, got hold of her coat which had been lying on the floor and pulled it up onto her knees. 'All right. I understand. I'm sorry. I had to see you and I had to say what I've said.'

`Now do get back into real life. What are you doing now in the real world?'

`I'm getting married. To Gulliver Ashe. Tomorrow.'

Crimond did then actually smile, in fact he laughed. 'Oh Lily, Lily – so you were ready to run even from under the wedding crown?'

`Yes.'

`Or would I have had to put up with a married slave?'

`No, no – if you'd wanted me none of that would have happened, none of that would have existed.'

`Oh you silly – silly – girl.'

Lily smiled through tears then dashed the tears away and stood up and put on her coat. She said, 'I can see you though, sometimes in the future, call in, you won't say never?'

`Not never, but I've got nothing for you.'

`Then I'll come for nothing.' `For Christ's sake, Lily,' said Crimond, `just clear off and be happy, can't you, and make someone else happy, and forget all this dream stuff. Go on, go away, get out and be happy!'

`Rose and Gerard have invited us to dinner, for after when they came back from Venice,' said Lily.

`At their new house?' said Gulliver.

`No, silly, they've only just bought it, at Rose's place.' Rose and Gerard had bought a house in Hammersmith near the river.

`I thought Gerard would never stick it out in Jenkin's foxhole,' said Gull, 'it's definitely not his scene.'

`What about our scene?' said Lily. 'I think we should buy a house soon, a nice small one in Putney or somewhere, with a garden. The children will like that.'

`The children?!'

`Now you've got a job and I've got a project we can afford it. I believe I've still got some of that old money left too, God knows what happened to most of it.'

`Let's not be in a hurry,' said Gulliver. `I like it here. And we aren't even married yet!'

`We will be this time tomorrow!' It was evening, late evening, of the day of Lily's visit to Crimond, and Gull and Lily were still sitting at the table after a lengthy celebration dinner including numerous toasts in vodka, wine and later cherry brandy, wishing themselves happiness and success in the future. They were both drunk but feeling exceptionally alert, clear-headed, argumentative and witty.

`We will be,' said Gulliver, 'unless one of us funks'it – or both of us!'

`Running away from under the wedding crown.'

`That's a phrase out of Dostoevsky,' said Gull, 'I thought you hadn't read him.'

`Oh. I thought it was just a general expression. I heard it somewhere.'

`Well, I won't run away!' said Gulliver. 'Look, here's the ring!' He showed Lily the golden ring nestling in its little furry velvet box. He also, in an instant, pictured the dreadful goings-on in that Dostoevsky novel. What a business it was to deal with women. One just had to take the risk.

`You've told Leonard what to do?' Leonard Fairfax was to be best man, and Angela Parke, Lily's old art school friend, was to be bridesmaid.

`At a registry office, there's nothing to it!' said Gull. `I'll give Leonard the ring so he can give it me back at the crucial moment. I bet most people don't bother even with that. Anyway, you've done it before!'

`Yes but – there wasn't a ring- I can't remember-' Lily had refused to wear a wedding ring. It seemed incredible now that she had once been married. Gulliver didn't want to hear about her shadowy husband, and she could not now remember his face – poor James, oh poor James. 'I do like a bit of ritual.'

^`It'll all be over in four minutes.'

`My God. Then we'll be stuck for life!'

`I certainly hope so. Maybe we can arrange a match between Leonard and Angela?'

`I doubt it,' said Lily. 'Angela's older than me and she's got fat. Anyway Leonard seems to be getting off with Gillian Curtland. Now she's an eligible girl.'

`She's awfully pretty,' said Gulliver, quickly banishing the image of that eligible nineteen-year-old.

`I still can't decide what to wear.'

`I'm going to wear my pale grey check suit with the pale pink over-check. You won't wear trousers, will you, please?'

`Of course not. I think I'll wear that black and white dress with the velvet collar.'

`So we just invite Angela and Leonard back here afterwards? It's almost a clandestine wedding! I forgot to tell you I saw Tamar round at Leonard's place. Conrad Lomas was there and that trendy priest from Boyars.'

`All religion did for her was get rid of her mother.'

`I don't know,' said Gull, 'I think it was something deep. Anyway she and the priest were having a jolly good laugh together! And Violet's rumoured to be happy.'

`That's impossible, she can't be happy.'

`Well cheerful or gleeful or something. Pat and Gideon don't know what to do with her, Leonard says she's eating them!'

`They're not edible,' said Lily, 'not like Tamar was. Gideon will pension her off.'

`I say, look at us, we're gossiping about our friends just like in real life.'

‘Are they our friends, have we friends?'

`Yes, and we'll have lots of new ones too, and we'll invite them to dinner, just like ordinary real people