The Sea, the Sea

friends, now we’ve got this chance to-this chance-Of course I won’t do anything you don’t want-Please-look, couldn’t you and your husband come round and see me, come round for drinks tomorrow at six, well at five, at seven, any time that suits you. Come to funny old Shruff End, I want you to see the house. Why not?’

Hartley was hunched up, her head shrunk into her neck, the rumpled collar of her blue dress cupping her hair. She was looking down, almost hidden by the pew. ‘Please don’t expect anything of us, I mean don’t call on us or ask us to-we don’t go to parties-’

‘It’s not a party!’

‘It’s not necessary for us to be like that just because-And please don’t run after me in the street, people will notice.’

‘But you ran away from me, you hid-’

‘Where we live people don’t sort of entertain because they’re neighbours, they keep themselves to themselves.’

‘But you already know me! And there needn’t be any “entertaining” if you mean ridiculous formalities, I hate that anyway. Hartley, I won’t put up with this. Can’t you just explain?’

Hartley now looked at me properly. I noticed that today she was wearing no lipstick, and this helped me to read her, to read her young look into her old look. Her tired pale wrinkled soft round face now looked very sad, with a kind of resigned sadness, as I had never seen it then, even when she was leaving me. But her sadness was resolute, almost wary, and she was entirely attentive, the vivid eyes no longer vague. She revealed her red slightly swollen hands, and clawed ineffectually at her rumpled collar.

‘What is there to explain, why should I-?’

‘You mean I’m not behaving like a gentleman?’

‘No, no-Look, I must go to the hairdressing lady.’

‘I behaved like a gentleman then and look where it got me! I never pressed you. I believed you when you said you’d marry me. I loved you. I love you. All right, you said then that you couldn’t trust me, you thought I’d be unfaithful and so on, oh God! Perhaps you feel something like that, that you couldn’t trust me now-But believe me, there are no women, no one with me, I’m alone, really alone. I want you to know that.’

‘There’s no need to say, it doesn’t matter-’

‘Yes, don’t misunderstand me. I just want you to know it’s simply me, and I’m like I always was, so there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘I must go to the hairdresser.’

‘Hartley, please-Oh all right, why indeed should you explain? Do you want me to go away now and never try to see you again?’

Of course I did not intend her to say yes, and she did not.

‘No, I don’t want that. I don’t know what I want.’

The desolate sound of this, the sound of need at last, made me feel much happier and much more clear- headed. ‘Hartley darling, you’ve got to talk to me, you know you have. After all there’s so much to talk about, isn’t there? I won’t do you any harm. My love for you then was mixed up, with all sorts of conflicts which don’t exist now, so it can all be better and we’ve sort of got it back again after all. Don’t you see? We can be real friends. And I do want to get to know your husband.’ I then felt bound to add, ‘I did like him so much, by the way.’ This rang false. Hartley had hunched herself up again behind the pew. ‘Anyway we must talk. There’s so much I want to tell you before it’s too late. And I want to ask you hundreds of questions. I don’t mean about what happened then. I mean about you and how you’ve lived and about-oh-Titus. I’d love to meet him. Perhaps I could help him.’

‘Help him?’

‘Yes, why not? Financially for instance, or-I know a lot about the world, Hartley-about some worlds, anyway. What does he want to do, what is he studying?’

Hartley gave a deep sigh, and then rubbed her cheeks with her red hands. She produced her handkerchief, still stained with lipstick. Tears had risen into her eyes.

‘Hartley-dear-’

‘He’s gone, he ran away, he’s lost, we don’t know where he is. We haven’t heard anything from him for nearly two years. He’s gone away.’

‘Oh God-’ So cunning and vile is the human soul that I felt instantly glad that Hartley had this understandable cause of grief and had told me about it and was weeping about it in my presence. Suddenly there was sympathy, communication.

‘I’m so sorry. But can’t he be found, have you told the police? There are ways of finding people. I could help there.’

Hartley mopped her face, then took a mirror and powder compact out of her bag and dabbed powder round her eyes. I had seen so many women powder their faces. I was seeing Hartley perform this little ritual of vanity for the first time. She said, ‘You can’t help and please don’t try to. Better to leave us alone and-’

‘Hartley, I’m not going to leave you alone, so you must make up your mind to that and invent some humane way of dealing with me! Are you just afraid of falling in love with me again, is that it?’

She stood up, lifted her shopping basket, which was beside me, and dropped her handbag into it. I came round into her pew and put my arms firmly round her shoulders. It still felt like doing the impossible. For a moment she bowed her head and rolled her brow quickly to and fro against my shirt, and I felt the blazing warmth of her flesh against mine. Then she pushed past me and began to walk to the door. I followed.

‘When shall I see you?’

‘Please don’t, you’ll worry us, and please don’t write.’

‘Hartley, what is it? Let go. Let yourself love me a bit, there’ll be no harm. Or do you think I’m such a grandee? I’m not, you know. I’m just your oldest friend.’

‘Don’t do anything, I’ll write to you, later.’

‘You promise?’

‘Yes. I’ll write. Only don’t come.’

‘Won’t you explain?’

‘There’s nothing to explain. Stay here please.’ And she went away.

Dearest Lizzie, I have been reflecting on what you said in your sweet and wise letter, and what you said also when we met at the tower. I have to ask your pardon. I think perhaps that you are right after all. I love you, but it may be that my rather (as you say) ‘abstract’ idea of our being together is not, for either of us, the best expression of that love. We might just create confusion and unhappiness for both. Your ‘suspicions’ of me may indeed be just, and you are not the first one to express such doubts! Perhaps I am by now too much of a restless Don Juan. So let us play it differently. This is not necessarily a sad conclusion, and we must both be realistic, especially as someone else’s happiness is also at stake. I was very touched and impressed by the spectacle of your relationship with Gilbert. It is an achievement and must of course be respected. What does it matter what people exactly ‘are’ to each other, so long as they love and cherish each other and are true to each other? You were so right to emphasize that word. You doubted my capacity to be loyal and I am near enough to sharing your doubts to be anxious for us not to take the risk. It is just as well that we never defined what we expected. We are both fortunate in being happy as we are, and we can simply count our old affectionate friendship, now so happily revived, as a bonus. We don’t want, do we, any more anguish or muddle. You are quite right. I shall respect your wisdom and your wishes and the rights of my old friend Gilbert! It is, as you said, important that we all three like each other; and let us, as you urged, enjoy a free and unpossessive mutual affection. So please forget my original foolish letter, to which you so bravely and rationally responded, and also my somewhat bullying tactics at our last meeting! I am lucky to have friends such as you and Gilbert and I intend to treasure them in a sensible and I hope generous way. I shall look forward to seeing you soon in London where I shall be arriving shortly. I will let you know. Accept, both of you, my affectionate best wishes and, if I may belatedly offer them, my congratulations.

Be well, little Lizzie, and remember me.

Your old friend,

Charles.

This was the letter, partly disingenuous, partly sincere, which I wrote to Lizzie on the afternoon of the day when I saw Hartley in the church for the second time. I returned home in a frenzy of misery and indecision, and after a while spent fruitlessly wondering what to do next, I decided that one sensible thing at least which I could do to pass the time would be to get rid of Lizzie. This involved no mental struggle and no problem except the labour of