The Sea, the Sea

might have been reflecting on those ambiguities in our relationship which struck Gilbert so much, might indeed have been put in mind of them by some crude jest of Gilbert’s. I had not thought of this fairly obvious idea before partly because I had been distracted from Titus, partly because I had somehow spread over him a canopy of innocence which derived from the suffering Hartley.

‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ I added.

Titus’s moist discontented mouth twitched in a smile or sneer.

I went on, ‘I want to tell you something.’ I had suddenly decided that I must tell Titus about Ben’s attempt to kill me.

‘If it’s about Mary-’

‘Yes-’ I had not talked to Titus since the awful scene at Nibletts when the ‘delegation’ brought the erring wife back to the hateful husband.

‘All that makes me sick. I’m sorry, forgive me. But I just don’t want to be involved. I left home so as not to be bothered with muddles like that, I hate muddles, and I’ve had them all my life with those two, muddle, muddle, muddle. They’re not bad people really, they’ve just got no sense of how to live a human life.’

‘She’s not a bad person, I agree-’

‘I can’t tell you how sick I felt when we went over to their place in the car, I wish to God I hadn’t come and seen it all, now I’ll never forget it. I felt so humiliated. Mary was being treated like a bit of property or a child. You mustn’t interfere in other people’s lives, especially married people. That’s in a way why marriage is so awful, I can’t think how anyone dares to do it. You’ve got to leave them alone. They’ve got their own way of hating each other and hurting each other, they enjoy it.’

‘If it’s so awful one ought to interfere. You mustn’t be so cynical and pessimistic.’

‘I’m not cynical and pessimistic, that’s the point, I don’t care, you think I think about it, I don’t, I don’t want to see, I don’t want to know, I don’t care a fuck about their bloody misery!’

‘Well, I do, and I’m going to get your mother out of it, I’m going to get her right out.’

‘You tried, and she just squealed to go home. I’d have let her walk. Sorry, I don’t mean that. You made a mistake, that’s all, now forget it. Honestly, I can’t understand why you should want her, I mean I can’t see it, is it sentimental or Salvation Army or something-you can’t want someone like that, I don’t see it, I don’t get the point. There’s that woman Lizzie Scherer who seems to like you a lot, and Rosina Vamburgh-’

‘I happen to love your mother.’

‘Oh-love-you mean-’

‘You may be too young to understand.’

‘I suppose it’s natural for me to be interested in girls in a normal way. When you’re old I daresay it may be different.’

I was stiff and bruised. It had been foolish to come so far. I was feeling tired, weak and exasperated. Titus’s sheer youth, his unspoilt youthful hopeful strength annoyed me to the point of screaming. His long bare brown legs, covered with reddish hairs, emerging from his roughly rolled-up trousers annoyed me. I felt I was losing touch with him, might be sharp with him and then be reduced to making an appeal.

‘I’m sorry it all upsets you so. I partly understand. But I do want your help, well, your support. And I want to tell you something rather important about your father.’

‘About Ben. Not my father. God knows who my father is. I’ll never know. Look, don’t let’s talk about Ben, he bores me. I’m not happy about this thing-’

‘What thing are we onto now?’

‘This thing between you and me. Let’s forget about them. Let’s talk about you and me.’

‘OK. I want to talk about that too. Titus, I’m not trying to kidnap you.’

‘Yes, I know-’

‘We’re free, we two, in relation to each other. There’s no need to define things.’

‘ “Father” is a definition, I should think!’

‘It’s an idea. Let’s just be friends if you prefer it. Let’s wait and see. You know there’s nothing sort of-sinister- here-you know what I mean-’

‘Oh I know that!’

‘I just want to feel that there’s a bond, a special relationship, a special connection.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Titus. ‘Sorry, I’m being ungrateful-and I’ve been here and eaten your food and drunk your drink I know-but I’ve been thinking-after all, why should you bother about me? If you’d been my real father, great, though even then-well, anyway what I wanted to say was this. I’ve enjoyed meeting you, I’ve enjoyed being here, in spite of the horrors. Later on I’ll maybe think: that was a good time, yes, good. But I want to earn my own living and lead my own life and I want to do it in the theatre. I’m not a silly stage-struck kid, I don’t imagine I’ll be a star, I don’t even know yet if I’ll be any good at acting, but I want to work with theatre people, I guess that’s my scene. This place is fine for a holiday, but I want to get back to London where the real things happen.’

‘Don’t real things happen here?’

‘Oh-you know what I mean. Where does your cousin live?’

‘In London.’ Again the bite of the serpent of jealousy. Had James got Titus on a lead? There had seemed to be a bond between them from the start. I said quickly, ‘Please don’t talk to any of the others about, you know-’

‘Of course not, not a word, you don’t have to say that, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Good-’

‘The thing is, I don’t want you to feel any special obligation to me. If you have obligations I’ll have to have obligations. I don’t want to live here at your expense any longer, I want to get cracking. I don’t mind your helping me a bit if you like. Maybe you could help me get into an acting school. If I could get a place in a school I could get a grant and I’d be independent. Maybe it’s a bit of a fiddle to ask you to get me in, but I don’t mind fiddling that much. Then I can be on my own and we can be friends or whatever you want, but I’ve got to be on my own, see?’

How weak and helpless I felt before that brutal innocent free power. He would wriggle away before I had even learnt how to love him or learnt the trick of holding him.

‘Yes, I’ll help you into an acting school, but we’ll have to think about it. I’ll come with you to London later on. Meanwhile maybe you can help me here. But I want to tell you something about Ben, something that you ought to know. You say he’s not a bad person, but he is. He’s a wicked violent man. He tried to kill me.’ I wanted to impress Titus and to shake his appalling detachment.

‘To kill you? How?’

‘He pushed me in. I didn’t fall accidentally into that sea hole. He pushed me.’

Titus showed little emotion. He leaned forward scratching an insect bite on his ankle. ‘Did you see him?’

‘No, but I felt him!’

‘How do you know it was him?’

‘Who else could it have been? He said he’d kill me the last time we met!’

‘I can’t imagine him doing that, it’s not in character, it’s most unlikely,’ said Titus in a maddeningly bovine manner.

‘I was pushed! Someone pushed me in the back!’

‘Are you sure? You could have fallen backward on a rock and then slipped into the water and it would feel like being pushed. You’d had some drinks, you know. And the doctor said you might be a bit confused about the whole business afterwards.’

I felt too tired and wretched to go on. It was foolish to have walked so far. ‘All right, Titus, let’s leave it there. Don’t repeat what I’ve said to anyone.’

Titus looked at me out of his narrowed stone-coloured eyes. ‘You see it’s not so much fun as you expected, playing at fathers and sons.’ This was the kindest thing he had said.

I said, ‘I’ll help you about acting school. We’ll talk of that later. Now bugger off, will you.’