The Sea, the Sea

been deliberately excluded from some kind of treat; as if something significant which I wanted to tell him had been, inside my very soul, shrivelled, trivialized by a casual laser beam of his intelligence. James’s mode of thought, his level of abstraction, was entirely unlike mine and he seemed to be sometimes almost frivolously intent upon exhibiting the impossibility of any communication between us. But of course really there was no intent, and indeed no treat, and in many ways my cousin could be seen as a bore, as an eccentric pedant with a kind of world- weariness which was simply tedious. He too after all had had his disappointments and about the most important of these I would doubtless never know. I suppose what I wanted was simply some ordinary amicable converse with James, which never happened, and which I was perhaps wrong in thinking that I could even imagine. After all, he was all that was left of my father and mother and Uncle Abel and Aunt Estelle.

‘The sea, the sea, yes,’ James went on. ‘Did you know that Plato was descended from Poseidon on his father’s side? Do you have porpoises, seals?’

‘There are seals, I’m told. I haven’t seen any.’

I put my little fragile tea bowl down with such force that I had to lift it up again to make sure it was not cracked. I held on to the sides of my chair. It had just occurred to me that the weird feeling I had experienced in the gallery, and which James’s potion had cured, was not just a hangover, but the threatened recommencement of the hallucination induced by LSD. I quite suddenly began to have something like the same feeling again, combined with a vivid image of the open mouth of Titian’s sea dragon.

‘What is it, Charles? You’re wrought up about something. You were distressed in the gallery. I was watching you. What is it? Are you ill?’

‘Do you ever remember my mentioning a girl called Mary Hartley Smith?’

I had certainly not intended to talk to James about Hartley, I had not conceived of such a confidence. It was as if I had been driven into some corner or put under some spell where the only efficacious charm was the actual mention of her name.

James, reverting to his bored air, reflected, ‘No, I can’t say that I do.’

In fact I was pretty sure that I had been careful never to mention Hartley to James.

‘Who is she then?’

‘She was the first girl I ever loved, and I don’t think I’ve ever really loved anyone else. She loved me too. We were at school together. Then she went off and married another man and disappeared. I never stopped thinking about her and caring about her, and that’s why I never got married. Well, I’ve just come across her again, she’s there, down there by the sea, living in the village with her husband, I’ve seen her, I’ve talked to her, it’s incredible, and all that old love is still there, stretched out right from the beginning of my life till now-’

‘You relieve my mind,’ said James, ‘I thought you might be sickening for the ’flu, and I’m very anxious not to catch it myself just now.’

‘I’ve met her husband. He’s nothing, a little ignorant bullying fellow. But she-oh she was so glad to see me, she still loves me-I can’t help feeling it’s a sign, a new beginning-’

‘Is it the same man?’

‘How do you mean-oh yes, it’s the same man.’

‘Have they children?’

‘A boy, eighteen or something, he’s adopted, but he’s run away and they don’t know where he is, he’s lost-’

‘Lost-that must be sad for them.’

‘But oh-Hartley, of course she’s changed, and yet she hasn’t changed-and I mean what incredible luck to meet her again like that, it’s the hand of destiny. And she’s had such an unhappy life, it’s as if she has prayed for me and I have come.’

‘And-so-?’

‘Well, so, I shall rescue her and make her happy for whatever time remains to us.’ Yes, it was simple, and nothing less than that great solution would serve. I lay back in my chair.

‘More tea?’

‘No thanks. I think I’d like a drink now. Dry sherry.’

James began fiddling in a cupboard. He poured out a glass for me. He seemed in no hurry to comment on my amazing revelation, as if he had already forgotten it. He continued quietly drinking tea.

‘Well,’ I said after a minute, ‘that’s enough about me. Tell me about yourself, James, how is the army treating you these days? Off to Hong Kong or somewhere?’ Two could play at that game.

‘I know you want me to say something’, said James, ‘but I can’t think what to say, I don’t know what it means. This old flame turning up, I don’t know how to react. I have various thoughts-’

‘Tell me a few.’

‘One is that you may be deluding yourself in thinking that you have really loved this woman all these years. What’s the proof? And what is love anyway? Love’s all over the mountains where the beautiful go to die no doubt, but I cannot attach much meaning to your idea of such a long-lasting love for someone you lost sight of so long ago. Perhaps it’s something you’ve invented now. Though of course what follows from that is another matter. Another thought I have is that your rescue idea is pure imagination, pure fiction. I feel you cannot be serious. Do you really know what her marriage is like? You say she’s unhappy, most people are. A long marriage is very unifying, even if it’s not ideal, and those old structures must be respected. You may not think much of her husband, but he may suit her, however impressed she is by meeting you again. Has she said she wants to be rescued?’

‘No, but-’

‘What does the husband think of you?’

‘He warned me off.’

‘Well, my advice is stay warned.’

I was not completely surprised by James’s line, his refusal to express a lively interest in my situation. I had noticed in the past that my cousin did not like any discussion of marriage. The subject embarrassed, perhaps depressed him.

I said, ‘The voice of reason.’

‘Of instinct. I feel it could all end in tears. Better to cool down. One should not come too close to what one may intuit as the misery of others.’

‘Thanks for your reactions, cousin. Now tell me about yourself. ’

‘You mustn’t miss your train. But I can order a taxi by telephone, there is quite a reliable firm at Victoria. What is his name?’

‘The husband?’

‘No, sorry, I meant the lost boy, the son.’

‘Titus.’

‘Titus,’ said James thoughtfully. He went on, ‘And have they searched for him? Told the police and so on, whatever one does?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Has he been gone long, have they no clue, no theory about where he is? Have they had a letter?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know-’

‘It must be terrible-’

‘Yes, no doubt. Now let’s forget my antics. What about your plans, what’s the latest in army life?’

‘The army-oh-I’ve left the army.’

‘Left the army?’ I was perhaps stupidly surprised and oddly dismayed, as if the army had somehow been keeping James safe, or safely caged up, or innocuously occupied, or something. I suppose I always felt that his soldiering made it happily impossible for us ever to collide or compete. Whereas now… ‘Oh well, you’ve retired, of course, golden handshake and all that. So we are both retired generals!’

‘Not exactly retired, no.’

‘You mean-?’

‘I have, as the expression goes, left the army under a cloud.’

I put my glass down and sat up straight. Now I was really amazed and upset. ‘No! James, you can’t-I mean-’ Speculations, of a not too improbable kind, about what sort of cloud my cousin had left the army under, crowded my mind and reduced me to silence.