'But what have you been doing with him?' asks Miss Callendar. 'You boxed him in a corner, and wouldn't let him out. You said on Thursday you might teach him again. Why did you say that?'
'You know why,' says Howard. 'You were playing with him to reach me,' says Miss Callendar. 'Look,' says Howard, 'while we were talking, he was spying. He's not worth your compassion.'
'He's a sad case,' says Miss Callendar, 'appealing for assistance. Like your Miss Phee. But one you bed and one you punish.'
'One's a person, and one's not,' says Howard. 'You're dangerously misdirecting your compassion. Look at him. Inspect his cropped little haircut, his polished shoes. Think about that arrogant, imperial manner. He expects the world to dance to his tune. If it doesn't, he smashes out. He can't face life or reality. He feels nothing except terror at being threatened by those who are actually doing some living. That's the meaning of his story. That's the person you're supporting.'
'I've done no more than I should, as his adviser,' says Miss Callendar, 'and rather less than you've done for Miss Phee.'
'No,' says Howard, 'you've believed him. You told me that. He offered an explanation of what you couldn't understand.'
'I haven't accepted his charge,' says Miss Callendar, 'I have believed what he saw to be true.'
'You haven't also helped him see it?' asks Howard. Miss Callendar looks at Howard; she says, 'What do you mean?' Howard says, 'It was on Tuesday Carmody and I had our fight. But he knows all about Monday night. About Felicity Phee and me in the basement. He must have been standing just about where you were standing, at exactly the same time, to know that.'
'You think I told him?' asks Miss Callendar, 'I didn't.'
'Did you see him that night, when you left?' asks Howard. 'Where was he?'
'I don't know,' says Miss Callendar, 'but I didn't tell him.'
'How do I know?' asks Howard. 'You don't,' says Miss Callendar. 'No,' says Howard.
Miss Callendar gets up out of her chair. She stands in front of the fire; she picks up a glass globe from the mantelpiece. There is a tiny village scene inside the globe; when she picks it up, snowflakes start to foam within the glass. Howard gets up too; he says, 'Do you understand what I'm saying to you?' Miss Callendar looks up; she says, 'Why do you blame me?'
'You've got to make your choice,' says Howard. 'Where you are. Who you're with. Whose story you accept.'
'I like to be fair,' says Miss Callendar. 'You can't be,' says Howard. 'Do you know where you're going? You're going his way. You'll end up just like him.'
'What do you mean?' says Miss Callendar. 'Look at this room you've shut yourself up in,' says Howard. 'It speaks what you are.' Miss Callendar looks round her room, at the chintz armchairs, the standard lamp, the prints on the walls. 'It's a very convenient room,' she says. 'It's a faded place,' says Howard, 'somewhere where you can hide, and protect yourself against anything that's growing now. Life and sexuality and love. Don't you hide?'
'I like to be a little elusive,' says Miss Callendar. 'He's destroyed himself, and you will too,' says Howard. 'You'll dry up, you'll wither, you'll hate and grudge, in ten years you'll be nothing, a neurotic little old lady.'
'It's a very nice room,' says Miss Callendar. Howard says: 'Freud once gave a very economical definition of neurosis. He said it was an abnormal attachment to the past.' Miss Callendar's face is very white; her dark eyes stare out of it. 'I don't want this,' she says, 'I can't bear this.'
'You've got to forget him,' says Howard, putting his hand over the hand that holds the little glass snowstorm, 'You've got to be with me.'
'I shouldn't have let you in,' says Miss Callendar. 'What did you do to him?'
'I'm not interested in him,' says Howard, 'I'm interested in you. I have been all along.'
'I don't want you to be,' says Miss Callendar. 'Is that your bedroom in there?' asks Howard. 'Why?' asks Miss Callendar, lifting a sad, crying face. 'Come in there with me,' says Howard. 'I don't want to,' says Miss Callendar. 'It's all right,' says Howard. 'He's not there. He's gone to see the Vice-Chancellor.'
'I don't want it,' says Miss Callendar. 'Another Miss Phee, getting the help.'
'Oh, you're more than that,' says Howard. 'Not a sub-plot,' says Miss Callendar. 'The thing it's all been about,' says Howard. 'Come on.'
He puts his hand on her arm. Miss Callendar turns, her dark head down. 'Yes,' says Howard. Miss Callendar moves toward the brown-stained bedroom door; she pushes it open and walks into the room. It is a small room, with, against one wall, a very large wardrobe; the bed is bulky and high, and has a wooden head and foot. On it is a patchwork quilt; Miss Callendar straightens it. Outside the window is a little garden, on the slope; Miss Callendar goes to this window, and pulls across the heavy plush curtains. The room now is nearly dark. Still standing by the curtains, away from him on the other side of the bed, she begins, clumsily, to remove the trouser suit; he hears the whisper of cloth as she takes things off. 'Can I put the light on?' asks Howard. 'No, don't, you mustn't,' says Miss Callendar. The clothes fall off onto the floor; her body is white in the faint light. She moves from her place; the bed creaks; she is lying on top of the quilt. His own clothes are around his feet. He climbs onto the bed, and touches with his hand the very faintly roughened softness of her skin. He feels the coldness of his hand on her, and a little pulling shudder, a revulsion, in the flesh. His hand has found the centre of her body, the navel; he slides it upward, to her small round breast, and then down, to her thighs. He feels the springs of response, tiny springs; the stir of the nipple, the warmth of the mucus. But she scarcely moves; she neglects to feel what she feels. 'Have you done this before?' he whispers. 'Hardly ever,' she whispers. 'You don't like it,' he says. 'Aren't you here to make me?' she asks. He kneads and presses her body. He lies over her, against her breast, and can feel the rapid knocking of her heart. In the dark he moves and feels the busy, energetic flesh of himself wriggling into her, like a formless proliferating thing, hot and growing and spreading. Unmitigated, inhuman, it explodes; the sweat of flesh, of two fleshes, is in the air of the dark room; their bodies break away from each other.
Miss Callendar lies with her face away from him; he can smell the scent of her healthy shampoo close to his face. 'I shouldn't have let you, it's wrong,' she whispers. 'It's not wrong,' he says. How can he have thought her quite old, when he met her first? Her body against him feels very, very young. He whispers, as to a child, 'Promise me you'll not think about him again, act for him again.' Miss Callendar keeps her head turned away; she says, 'That's what it was for.'
'It's for your good,' says Howard. 'Those things you said,' says Miss Callendar. 'What about them?' asks Howard. 'You said them just to get inside me.'
'I think you'd have let me, in any case,' says Howard. 'It was bound to happen.'
'Historical inevitability,' says Miss Callendar. 'There was an ending. I was it.'
'That's right,' says Howard. 'Marx arranged it.' After a moment, Miss Callendar turns her head; she says, 'Marx said history is bunk.'
'That was Henry Ford,' says Howard. 'No, Marx,' says Miss Callendar. 'Oh, yes?' asks Howard, 'where?'
'A late insight,' says Miss Callendar, turning her body over to face him. 'It's my field,' says Howard. 'Blake for you, and Marx for me.'
'I'm right,' says Miss Callendar, 'it's a critical ambiguity.'
'If you want,' says Howard. 'Was I awful at it?' asks Miss Callendar. 'It's like golf, you need plenty of practice,' says Howard. 'We can arrange it.'
'You're so busy,' says Miss Callendar, 'and George will be on duty again.'
'Oh, I don't think so,' says Howard, 'I think we can deal with him.'
XIII
And now it is the winter again; the people, having come back, are going away again. The autumn, in which the passions rise, the tensions mount, the strikes accumulate, the newspapers fill with disaster, is over. Christmas is coming; the goose is getting fat, and the papers getting thin; things are stopping happening. In the drives the cars are being packed, and the people are ready, in relief, to be off, to Positano or the Public Record Office, Moscow or mother, for the lapse of the festive season. There are coloured lights along the promenade, now on, now of, according to the rhythm of the power strikes; Nixon is back in office for a second term, and there is talk of seasonal
