‘A Spaniard?’
‘A Zionist. He doesn’t believe in the Arab Problem.’
‘A Jew?’
‘I don’t know: he eats ham. And there’s Ayesha Babbingtori — the sculptress — and her boy friend, Bubbsie Dark. They have all the vices. There’s Johnnie Corduroy, in films: and Hemmeridge —’
‘What does he do, for goodness’ sake?’
‘He … he isn’t absolutely normal, Tot, my dear. In point of actual fact, he’s a … Never mind. Then there will be Soskin — a dentist, a refugee, you never met him — and Goggs, a pork. butcher.’
‘Goggs, a pork-butcher. Yes?’
‘What are you looking at me like that for?’
‘I think you’ve gone out of your mind, Asta. Who else?’
‘Tony Mungo,’ said Asta, with a defiant growl, ‘a bookseller, etcetera.’
‘What kind of
‘He sells other things you wouldn’t understand. Never mind. And there’s Mr Roget, James Geezle, and Alan Shakespeare.’
‘They do what?’
‘Geezle is a tattooist. Roget takes care of his mother, and Alan Shakespeare has money of his own. If I think of anybody else I’ll let you know. You don’t have to come down unless you want to, Tot, my love.’
‘But, Asta, my dear heart, I do want to.’
‘Behave yourself, then.’
‘If you think I don’t know how to conduct myself in order not to disgrace you in the presence of your friends —’
Asta Thundersley suddenly felt tired and discouraged. Between a yawn and a sigh she said: ‘I’d be grateful for any help you could give me, Tot, my sweet. I know I seem crazy. I don’t care about that. The only thing is that I feel helpless.’
Asta’s angry, glaring eyes flickered and became wet.
‘There, my dear — there, there, there,’ said Thea Olivia, stroking the back of her sister’s head. ‘You mustn’t wear yourself out.’
‘Yes, I must,’ said Asta, shaking herself like a wet spaniel and gritting her teeth. But then she started to weep, somewhat in the manner of a boy whose feelings have been hurt — sniffing, swallowing, holding back, bursting out, and pausing to blow her nose while Thea Olivia tried to comfort her.
‘Oh, go to the devil!’ said Asta at last, throwing a salty wet handkerchief into the fireplace and striding out of the room.
‘I will, if you want me to.’
‘No, darling — please — good night.’
‘God bless you, my sweet.’
‘God bless, Tot.’
24
Asta went to her room in one of her highly infrequent moods of black depression and rare doubt, feeling — for the third time in her life — feeble and lost, defenceless and lonely.
The first time she had felt like this had been at the turn of the century: as an ugly, noisy, boisterous, irrepressible girl in her ninth year she had fallen in love with a handsome cavalry officer twenty years older — a straight-backed, dignified man with a great moustache. This love was more than she could contain. She had to tell someone about it and chose for her confidante her young and pretty Aunt Clara, who listened to her with all the gravity in the world, uttering occasional sympathetic interjections as one woman to another — and when the whole story had come out threw her head back in an uncontrollable gust of laughter. This cruel yet melodious mockery came back into Asta’s memory as she stood in the elegant old bedroom and watched the firelight winking on the polished walnut posts of the bed upon which she had been born. She told herself that it was stupid to remember such foolish things. Yet how could she help remembering? It was soon after this humiliation that she had decided to be a missionary — strong yet gentle, fearless yet kind, bold as a dashing cavalry officer, yet full of understanding — plunging through stinking, steamy jungles, laughing at nothing but danger, bringing the Peace of God into the hearts of fierce, cruel black people. But all this was so long ago, so terribly long ago! She had wanted desperately to give herself to all the defenceless and lonely people of this sad and bewildering world in which so many cry in vain for comfort, and where tender hearts like peaches carelessly thrown into a basket get bruised and go bad. She wanted to interpose herself between the cruelty and the vulnerability of mankind. But she realized, even at that tender age, that Good must be militant; that it is not for nothing that Evil is symbolized by the subtle snake, that twists and turns and fascinates, and must be struck quick and hard, and can never really be charmed into harmlessness. She was by nature an extravert; she became thunderous, unmanageable, had to throw her weight about, make her presence felt.
The second occasion of Asta Thundersley’s descent into the shadows occurred — what nonsense one thinks of, alone at night! — twenty years later. She had owned a white terrier bitch which, in some inexplicable way, had grown to resemble her. The bitch, Jinny, had the same sort of tenacious goodwill under the same kind of forbidding exterior, and a half-fierce, half-humorous expression that had caused her to be called ‘Asta Thundersley’s Twin Sister’. Between Asta and this animal there was an affection, a tacit understanding. One day Jinny was run over by a taxi. Her hindquarters were smashed. The vet told Asta that there was nothing to be done: Jinny had to die, and it would be better if she died immediately. Asta loved Jinny better than any other individual in the world.
That was an atrocious hour.
