The Book And The Brotherhood

fluff of hair from the comb and dropped it ⁱⁿ the wastepaper basket. Oh Christ, Crimond complacently combing his hair after tumbling Jean! The fake departure and the last kiss, the Judas kiss he gave to Jean before he left her at the airport. The sojourn with the sinners in hell in the Wicklow bar. The horse and the cow and die black-faced sheep and the little flowers. The ascent, the descent, the fight -The fight came in slow motion, and though he, thought constantly about the blow, as in a dream he could not evoke the physical pain, the agony of the event was humiliation and shame. Duncan had once been a skilled fighter- a wrestler-but he had simply blundered at the fellow. Would it have been better if he had hurt Crimond seriously? Ought he to have exposed Crimond at once and branded him as a leper? Ought he, then, or later, to have made Jean tell him every detail, every bedding, everything, rather than letting it all be passed over, 'taken into consideration', forgiven? He had let Crimond off because he was worried about his eyesight and did not want the public rumpus of declaring himself a cuckold, he had let Jean off because he was so glad to have her back, because he was grateful. He should have destroyed Crimond and punished her. He had been weak and soft, he had got what he deserved, it was all his own doing. These were thoughts which, detached from any manageable reality, led away towards madness.

Duncan was becoming more and more out of sympathy with his body, he hated the bulky graceless mound which he had to move laboriously about. He was even now still putting on weight. He had once been a big thick-set muscular man, a formidable figure with his broad shoulders and his great comnanding head, a bear, a bull, a lion. Now he was simply a fat man with a puffy face like a gross baby, his nose was thicker, his nostrils enlarged and sprouting hair, he had been handsome, he had become ugly, the ugly old cheated husband, a traditional figure of fun. He envied Gerard his taut physique and his undimmed idealism, he envied Jenkin his simple uncluttered uncomplicated innocent life. He pictured again and again and saw in his dreams Crimond's slim tall form, pale as marble, his fierce face, his long nose and gleaming eyes. How could that graceful powerful figure not be preferred to his gross trunk? In his self-hatred Duncan found only one thing to pity, his damaged eye, his poor eye with its curious stain of black. His softened sadness for the creature, as if it were a little sentient thing that had come into his life and had to be looked after, sometimes seemed like a momentary comfort, as he stared at his big head in the mirror, put on his dark-rimmed spectacles, and tried to recapture the quizzical humorous lovable face he had once had.

Sex with Jean had never been perfect, but it had been live, continuous, necessary. They had lived together like two animals, their physical contacts instinctive, always touching, soothing, caressing. The absence of this dimidium anititar left him with a hideous paining wound which oozed blood and festered. Sometimes he wished that his love for Jean could just be eaten up by hate and shame, crushed and ground into pieces. In the extreme of this agony it was not Crimond but Jean that he wished to be dead, not as a revenge, but just, like an injection of morphia, as an instant cure. But of course there was no such cure, the Jean who tortured him would exist forever; and however ruthlessly and systematically he tried to sever all the little links which bound his person to hers, he continued to suffer so that he could gasp and bellow like a wounded bull.

This late Sunday afternoon in October as he was shaving (he needed to shave twice a day) and studying his cheeks, reddened with drink and covered with little breaking veins, he was thinking about Tamar Hernshaw who had invited herself for a drink that evening. Duncan did not want to see Tamar, but had been unable deftly enough to handle her telephone call which took him by surprise at the office, and had found himself asserting that he would be delighted. Contrary to what was believed by Gerard and the others, Jean and Duncan had never looked on Tamar as some sort of daughter. Such a relationship would have been, for both of them, too painful, mocking them with a semblance of the real child that had never come. They were both very fond of Tamar however, they cared about her and pitied her. Jean had been touched by Tamar's 'crush' and even moved by it toward a physical warmth which was almost maternal. In earlier days Tamar ot if to come to tea with Jean and stay until Duncan came home. Duncan was embarrassed by children and had solved the problem by treating Tamar, even when she was quite a small child, as an adult and conversing with her solemnly as with an equal intellect. For this procedure, which had worked remarkably well, Tamar was silently and deeply grateful.

‘This is Jean, as she was when I first met her.'

‘But she's just the same now,' said Tamar, 'she's so beautiful!’

It had not been Tamar's idea to look at all those old photos. Duncan, already a bit drunk when she arrived, had brought the photograph albums and was having an orgy of reminescence, sitting beside her on the sofa. She was afraid he would burst into tears at any moment. They sat in front of the electric fire which Duncan had put in front of the fireplace where Jean used to burn wood. The room was dark except for one lamp. This saved Duncan the trouble of tidying it up.

‘There's Sinclair looking roguish, he was pleased with himself that boy. There's Gerard looking dignified.'

Tamar looked solemnly at Sinclair who had died young,only a little older than she was.

‘The dark burly chap who looks like a rugger blue is me.'

'Were you a rugger blue?'

'No.'

'Who's the girl?'

That's Rose, she's changed, she's got a timid girlie look in that picture. There's Robin Topglass playing the fool. The weird creature watching him who looks like a dwarf is Jenkin That's Marcus Field who became a monk. The Jewish fellow with the flowing hair is Professor Levquist. I'd forgotten how young he still was in those days.'

`Who's the man who looks like a comedian?'

`That's Jean's father. He never liked me. Of' course you've met him, haven't you. He doesn't look like that now. There's cricket at Boyars.'

`Rose is batting!'

`Yes, she was quite good. They played cricket at their school. Jean treated it as a joke. You can just see Jean in the distance at long-stop. Gerard was jolly good at cricket, damn near got his blue. Sinclair could have too only he never took anything seriously. He was a very stylish player. That’s Boyars again, a lot of us with three maids and two gardeners standing on the steps.'

`That's the past! Rose does it all now with that old woman who lives there.'

'That pretty girl in the front is that old woman. The dog is Sinclair's dog. He was called Regent. I haven't thought about that dog since…'

This was one of the points at which Tamar was afraid Duncan would start to cry. She wished the reminiscing would stop. At every turn of the page she was afraid that the face of Crimond would appear. She need not have worried. Duncan had long ago removed every trace of Crimond from the album Crimond with a squash racket, Crimond with a tennis racket, Crimond with a rifle, Crimond with his arm round Jenkin, Crimond in a punt, Crimond in white flannels, in evening dress, in doublet and hose (in a Shakespeare play), holding one end of a banner saying Hands off the Soviet Union (Robin was holding the other end), Crimond smiling, laughing, joking, arguing, orating, looking zany, whimsical, noble, thoughful, solemn. The fellow was everywhere, as this indubitable evidence showed, had been mixed and mingled into all their doings, all their thoughts, and projects, all the gaiety and all the idealism of their youth.

`How pretty all the girls look,' said Tamar, 'and so well dressed.'

`That was at a garden party. Yes, the girls were pretty in ose days. That's Marcus Field's sister. That's a girl called Tessa something, she was a friend of Jean's, she died in a fire. Jeunes fines en fleurs. As you are now,' he added politely.

Tamar could not connect herself with those tall elegant young women. She felt sorry for Tessa something who