“That’s subtle of you, Miriam. Old James. You’ve no idea how you’re coming on. Or coming out. Yes. I think there’s always been a subtle leap in Miriam. Without words. A song without words. Good formula for Miriam. What did they interview me about?”
“I refused to be drawn. Suddenly, in the middle of lunch she asked me in her Cheltenham voice ‘What do you do with your leishah?’ I think she really wanted statistics; guttersnipe statistics.”
“She’s an enchantress. No end of a lark, really. She runs old Grimshaw. Runs everybody. You’re rather like her you know. You’ve got the elements, with your wristwatch. What did you say?”
“Nothing. I haven’t the faintest idea what I do with my leisure. Besides I can’t talk about real things to a bayonet. She is fascinating, though.”
“She’s a gypsy. When she looks at one … with that brown smile … one could do anything for her.”
“There you are. Your smiles. … But he’s the most perfect darling. Absolutely sincere. A Breton peasant. I talked to him about some of your definitions. Not as yours. As mine.”
“Never mind. He knew where they came from.”
“Not at all. Only those I thought I agreed with. And he’s given me quite a fresh view of the Lycurgans.”
“Now don’t you go and desert.”
“Well he must be either right or wrong.”
“What a damned silly thing to say. Oh what a damned silly thing to say.”
Chill windy afternoon, grey tamarisks waving in a bleak wind, tea indoors and a fire bringing into the summery daylight the sudden message that summer was at an end. The changed scene chiming together with the plain outspoken anger. Again the enlivening power of anger, the relief of the clean cut, of everything brought to an end, of being once more single and clear, free of everyone, homesick for London. …
Mr. Hancock’s showing-out bell sounded in the hall. The long sitting had turned into a short one. No need to go up yet. He’ll come downstairs, pad-pad, flexible handmade shoes on the thick stair carpet, the sharp turn at the stair-end, the quick little walk along the passage and soft neat clatter of leather heels down the stone stairs to the workshop. Always the same. The same occasion. Which occasion? That used to be so clear and so tremendous. Confused now, but living on in every sound of his footsteps.
Homesick for London. For those people whose lives are set in a pattern with mine, leaving its inner edge free to range.
Perhaps the set pattern is enough. The daily association. The mass of work. Its results unseen. At the end it might show as a complete whole, crowded with life. Life comes in; strikes through. Everything comes in if you are set in a pattern and always in one place. Changed circumstances bring quickly, but imperfectly, without a background, the things that would be discovered slowly and perfectly, on a background, in calm daily air. All lives are the same life. Only one discovery, coming to everybody.
The little bell on the wall burred gently. Room free. No hurry.
I’ll wait till he’s gone downstairs.
“Nice Miriam. You really are a dear, you know. You’ve a ruddy, blazing temper. You can sulk too, abominably. Then one discovers an unsuspected streak of sweetness. You forget. You have a rare talent for forgetfulness and recovery. You’re suddenly pillowy. You’ve no idea, Miriam, what a blessing that is to the creature called man. It’s womanly you are. Now don’t resent that. It’s a fine thing to be. It makes one want you, quite desperately. The essential deeps of you. Like an absolution. I’m admitting your deeps, Miriam.”
“It’s most inconvenient suddenly to be forgetting you are having a row with a person. It’s really a weakness. Suddenly getting interested.”
“Your real weakness is your lack of direction, the instability of your controls. If I had you on my hands for six months you’d be no end of a fine chap. Now don’t resent that. It’s a little crude, I admit. Perhaps I ought to beg your pardon. I beg your pardon, Miriam.”
“I never think about myself. I remember once being told that I was too excitable. It made me stare, for a few minutes. And now you. I believe it. But I shall forget again. And you are all wrong about ‘controls.’ I don’t mean mine. I mean your silly idea of women having feebler controls than men.”
“Not my idea. Tested fact.”
“Damn facts. Those arranged tests and their facts are utterly nothing at all. Women’s controls appear to be feebler because they have so much more to control. I don’t mean physically. Mentally. By seeing everything simultaneously. Unless they are the kind of woman who has been warped into seeing only one thing at a time. Scientifically. They are freaks. Women see in terms of life. Men in terms of things, because their lives are passed amongst scraps.”
“Nice Miriam.”
“… Now we can begin to talk. It’s easier, you know, to talk hand in hand.”
The touch of his hand bringing a perfect separation. Everything suddenly darkened. Two little people side by side in a darkness. Exactly alike. Hypo gone. His charm, quite gone.
Alma crossing the end of the lawn. There was not any feeling of guilt. Only the sense of her isolation. Companionship with her isolation. Then the shock of his gay voice ringing out to her across the lawn.
“Susan, if you have that day in town, awful things will happen.” Her little pink-clad figure turning for a moment to wave a hand.
“Of course they will! Rather!”
“We’re licensed!”
“Susan doesn’t like me.”
“She does. She likes you no end. Likes you currently. The way your hair goes back over your ears.”
… He misses nothing. That is his charm, his supremacy in charm over all other men. And misinterprets everything. That is his tragedy. The secret of his perpetual disappointments. He spoiled everything by the perpetual shock of his deliberate guilt and deliberate daring. That was driving me off all the time. The extraordinariness of his idea of frankness! His “stark talk” is nothing compared
