The Sea, the Sea

recognized, and realized how much I had forgotten, the shape of her mouth, so much prettier without the lipstick. I kissed her gently, briefly, on the familiar mouth, as we used to kiss; and there was an intelligence in her quiet negative reception of the kiss which was itself a communication.

She said, ‘I’ve changed so much, I’m a different person, you were so kind in your letter, but it can’t be like that-you care about old times, but that’s not me-’

‘It is you. I recognized you in the kiss.’ It was true. The kiss had transfigured her, like a kiss in a fairy tale. I remembered the feel, the texture, the movement of her mouth; and all that awkwardness was gone, that sense which I had had in the church of the impossibility of holding her. Our bodies were suddenly in tension in the same space, moved by the same forces. When I felt this I wanted to shout with joy, but I kept a quiet tone, wanting to coax her into speech, not wanting to affright her. ‘Hartley, it’s a miracle, I gave up the theatre, I came here to solitude, and I found you-I came here for you, I realize it now-’

‘But you didn’t know I was here-’

‘No, yet I’d been searching for you, I’ve always been searching for you.’

She said, ‘It can’t be like that,’ and lifted up her hand as if to conceal her face. Then she put her hand on the table where I covered it firmly with mine. ‘Charles, listen, I must talk to you, there’s so little time.’ With the back of her other hand she touched her eyes, and caused the unshed tears to fall. Then she said, ‘Oh Charles, my dear, my dear,’ and bowed her head and thrust it towards me with a doglike movement. I stroked the dry brittle hair, I gently undid the hanging slide and put it in the pocket of my trousers.

‘You’ll stay with me forever now, Hartley.’

She raised her head and mopped her eyes again, this time with the sleeve of the green cotton coat which she was wearing over the yellow dress which I had seen before.

‘Hartley, take off your coat, I want to see you, I want to touch you, take it off.’

‘No, it’s cold here.’

I pulled at the coat and she took it off. There was an intense charm in these movements, as if they were the merest innocent spiritual symbol of undressing a woman, something that angels might play at without quite understanding. I touched her breasts where they pressed warmly, firmly against the yellow stuff of the round- necked dress. I was delighted by the absence of any attempt to attract. This was a novelty in my life. The face powder was a careless habit, the dress was sloppy, nothing. The new unpainted lips were, I felt, alone a tribute to me. A woman who has long stopped working on her appearance cannot suddenly become smart and sleek. I was delighted that Hartley, as she was, attracted me. I felt proud, possessive, relieved, as if some life-long terror had been removed. And I thought: I’ll buy her such lovely clothes-not flashy-smart, but just right for her. I’ll look after her.

‘Charles, I must just talk to you quickly, I just came to talk, after your letter, before he comes back-’

‘Where is he?’ I had forgotten his existence.

‘He’s at his woodwork.’

‘Woodwork?’

‘Yes, his woodwork class. It’s a boat-building class really, only they do woodwork, I don’t think he’ll ever build a boat. It’s shelves this week. It’s the only evening he’s out so I had to come now. They go on till quite late, I think they drink beer afterwards. ’

‘I don’t want to talk about him,’ I said. And I thought, if only I had a car and could drive, I’d take her right away now, this instant.

‘Charles, listen, please, I haven’t come to you like you think, like you said in the letter you wanted, that isn’t possible. I’ve just come to tell you some things and-oh Charles-it’s so extraordinary to see you. I thought it could never be, that it was a sort of impossibility of the world, that we two could ever be together again. I never thought I ever would-see you again and touch you-it’s like a dream.’

‘That’s better. Only it’s not a dream. Your life without me has been a dream. You are awaking from a dream, a nightmare. Oh why did you ever leave me, how could you have done, I nearly died of grief-’

‘We can’t talk about that now-’

‘Yes we can, I want to talk about the old days, I want us to remember everything, to understand everything, to relive everything, to establish ourselves together as one being, one being that ought never to have been divided. Why did you leave me, Hartley, why did you run away?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t remember-’

‘You must remember. It’s like a riddle. You’ve got to remember. ’

‘I can’t, I can’t-’

‘Hartley, you’ve got to. You said that I wouldn’t be faithful to you. Was it really that? You can’t have thought that, you knew how much I loved you!’

‘You went to London.’

‘Yes, but I had to, I wasn’t leaving you, I thought about you all the time, you know that, I wrote to you every day. It wasn’t anyone else, was it? It wasn’t him?’ Strangely enough this terrible thought had only just this moment come to me.

‘No.’

‘Hartley, did you know him then, did you know him before you left me?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Of course you can remember!’

‘Please stop, please.’

The way she spoke these words, almost mechanically, with a kind of evasive animal instinct, words so like those which I had overheard her say so recently, made me want to cry out with pain and rage and a sort of awful pity for her.

‘Did you know him then?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter, every little tiny thing matters and must be found again and must be picked up and must be redeemed, we’ve got to relive the past and clarify it and purify it, we’ve got to save each other at last, to make each other whole again, don’t you see-’

‘I didn’t know him then, he was sort of engaged to one of my cousins, to Edna, you remember, well, no, you won’t, and then she dropped him and I felt sorry for him-’

‘But where did you meet him, was it after you ran away?’

‘Yes, I went away to one of my aunties at Stoke-on-Trent, where Edna was. I didn’t know him when we were together. It wasn’t that, it wasn’t anything, I didn’t want you to be an actor, it wasn’t anything, please don’t.’

‘But, Hartley, do be calm and answer my questions, I’m not angry with you and it is important. You didn’t want me to be an actor! You never said so.’

‘I did, I wanted you to go to the university.’

‘But, Hartley, it can’t have been just that.’

‘It wasn’t just anything, oh don’t upset me so, we were too much like brother and sister and you were so sort of bossy and I decided I didn’t want to.’ Some tears spilled again. ‘Have you got a handkerchief?’

I brought her a clean tea towel and she wearily wiped her eyes, her face, her neck. A button had come off the tight yellow dress at her breast. I had an impulse to grab her and tear the dress.

I sat down again. ‘Hartley, if you had all these misgivings why didn’t you utter them? We could have done something about it. It was so terrible to go away without a word, it was wicked.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I had to go like that, it was the only way, it wasn’t easy. Oh it’s cold, it’s so cold, I must put my coat on again.’ She put it on and pulled it round her, turning up the collar.

‘How can it have happened, you can’t simply have decided, there must be something else, something you haven’t told me. Do you remember that day-’

‘Charles, there isn’t time, and I really can’t remember. It’s so long ago, it’s a lifetime ago.’

‘To me it’s yesterday. I’ve been living with it ever since, reliving it and recalling it and going over and over it and wondering what went wrong and what happened to you and where you were. I think I’ve wondered where you were every day of my life. And I’ve been alone all this time, I’ve stayed in freedom, because of you. It’s yesterday, Hartley. That was the only real time I ever lived through.’

‘Alone. I’m sorry.’