An Accidental Man

  ‘No.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem too stiff. I’m sure you should see a specialist. I’ll inquire about people.’

  She went on gently fingering the stiff hand and moving it about.

  ‘Funny thing,’ said Austin.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It never occurred — to any other woman — to do that — to my hand.’

  ‘What about this one, darling?’ said Mitzi. She was reading out from the evening paper. ‘Charming unfurnished cottage to let, Surrey-Sussex border, unspoilt village, suit writer or artist.’

  ‘I don’t like suit writer or artist.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It means it’s damp and has a hole in the roof and no proper kitchen.’

  ‘Well, we could mend the hole and warm away the damp, it’s quite cheap — Or this, this sounds lovely. Old Mill freehold for sale. Mill wheel in working order. Trout stream.’

  ‘But we don’t fish. And the mill wheel would make a dreadful noise.’

  ‘Or this. Excellent subject for development —’

  ‘I refuse to develop.’

  ‘Well then, Small Georgian House —’

  ‘Too big.’

  ‘Wait, you silly creature! Small Georgian House in village divided into four flats. Large garden.’

  ‘It’ll be on a main road. And there’d be quarrels about the garden.’

  ‘Converted barn with paddock — That’s better. The dog can run about in the paddock.’

  ‘Mitzi darling, these are dreams.’

  ‘Well, I like dreaming,’ said Mitzi, ‘especially with you. There must be somewhere for the dog to run about, mustn’t there.’

  It was late in the evening at Mitzi’s house. Mitzi pretended that the evening was chilly and had lit a fire in her sitting-room for cosiness. They were eating sandwiches and drinking white wine. Charlotte, trying to persuade her friend to drink less, had prescribed a régime of sherry and wine and no spirits.

  ‘What sort of dog shall we have, Char?’ said Mitzi. ‘A collie? A retriever?’

  Charlotte stared into the fire, into a deep crumbling golden shaft that was white and blinding at the end. She blinked her eyes.

  ‘We can’t afford any of these places, Mitzi.’

  ‘We can if I sell this house. And I’m going to apply for that sports journalism job. Of course that means we must be near a station so that I can commute. Somewhere on the Dorking or Guildford line, or in Kent —’

  ‘But — I must contribute —’

  ‘Don’t keep fussing about that. Just let me arrange everything. What shall we call the dog?’

  ‘I’ll get a job,’ said Charlotte. ‘I suppose I can learn to type. Or I could work in a library —’

  ‘Rover. Fido. Bonzo.’

  ‘Certainly not. A dog should be called something like — Ganimede — or Pyrrhus — or —’

  ‘All right. Pirrus. I like that. Pirrus! Come here at once, sir!’

  ‘You mustn’t be in a hurry to sell this house, Mitzi —’

  ‘I’ve made up my mind. Have you written to Austin yet about how he can have the flat back?’

  ‘Not yet. Are you sure —’

  ‘I’m sure. Are you?’

  Charlotte looked into the deep glowing shaft with the invisible end. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ll move in here soon?’

  ‘Yes. But I must pay rent.’

  ‘Of course not. And you won’t be ashamed of me?’

  ‘Don’t be a damned fool.’

  ‘Come soon then,’ said Mitzi. ‘I’m so terrified you’ll change your mind.’

  ‘All right. I’ll write to Austin. I’ll come here.’

  ‘You don’t feel I’m just pressurizing you? You don’t feel sort of cornered or — doomed — about it?’

  ‘I feel fine about it,’ said Charlotte and leaned back in her chair and regarded her companion.

  Mitzi, in a black trouser suit with a white shirt and a black velvet bow tie looked ridiculously and charmingly chubby, like some plump eighteenth-century beau. She had had her hair carefully cut in receding layers. Her round face was shiny with health and pleasure. She grinned and grabbed a sandwich.

  At first Charlotte had just drifted along. In the hospital Mitzi had laid claims of ownership to her. Mitzi had stood beside her bed while she was unconscious. Mitzi had welcomed her back into life. And so henceforth somehow she was Mitzi’s property.

  Charlotte had vaguely noticed these claims. It was Mitzi who arranged the taxi to take her back to the flat. When Clara arrived Charlotte was already gone. It was Mitzi who, it turned out, had ordered the milk and filled the fridge with goodies. Mitzi who cooked her lunch on that day. It was very kind, very kind indeed. Charlotte thanked her and said goodbye and shut the door. Clara rang up. Garth rang up. Clara said Charlotte ought not to be alone and would — Charlotte said she was fine and no, she did not want to visit or be visited. Matthew rang up and said he would ring again and suggest a meeting. Clara rang up and said did she know Dorina was dead, she had electrocuted herself with an electric fire in a hotel in Bloomsbury. No, Charlotte did not know. Clara felt that Charlotte ought to know. Would Charlotte like to come — ? No. Charlotte went to bed and thought about Dorina. It was a shock but Charlotte felt curiously detached and less upset than she would have expected. Now of course Matthew would be comforting Mavis. Charlotte thought about her own death and how she had survived it and now lived in limbo. She looked for sleeping tablets to send her to sleep. There were none. She cried for some time.

  The next day it was rather difficult to get up. She made some tea and went back to bed. The door bell rang but it was only Clara. Charlotte talked to her in the hall in her dressing-gown. How — ? Fine. Would she — ? No. The tea was cold. Matthew did not ring. Charlotte went to bed again. She cried some more. Then Mitzi arrived laden with all sorts of things, food and drink and flowers and terrible magazines, and whisked around the flat with dreadful energy while Charlotte lay back and watched. Would Charlotte come out to lunch at that new Greek restaurant? Why not. Would she please wear this dress? (Mitzi rooting in wardrobe.) All right.

  Over lunch Mitzi talked about Austin. Othello is said to have won Desdemona’s love by telling her about his army career. Mitzi won at least Charlotte’s interest by the directness and vigour of her view of Austin. Mitzi’s ‘attack’ was refreshing. Austin was a cad because he was really frightened of women. Austin had been afraid of his father, of course. Then he had been afraid of Matthew. Austin had wanted to get back at his father because his father wouldn’t let his mother spoil him, but then he took it out of the women instead. Austin liked to have a dramatic relationship with a woman, he could never be cosy. He liked weird witchy women whom he could bully because he was afraid of them. He would have liked a mad wife whom he could keep in chains. What he wanted was to see the woman acting what he really felt. But then it all got too intense and he had to run away. Of course he couldn’t make head or tail of me, said Mitzi, because I wouldn’t play this game at all. Then she started to cry. She said, one must have somebody to look after.

  How Mitzi had then become a habit Charlotte could not quite say. Just, perhaps, because she was so delightfully unlike Clara. Mitzi had helped too because she was a simplifier. When Charlotte complained about Matthew’s neglect, Mitzi said, go and see him, and Charlotte went. That Charlotte was then able to qualify Matthew as disappointing was partly because to explain. Matthew to Mitzi was inevitably to diminish him. Charlotte felt a kind of sadness in doing this, but a certain satisfaction as well. ‘He’s too big for his boots,’ said Mitzi. ‘Why can’t he just be friendly and loving without making such a fuss? There’s little enough love around. He’s conceited and mean.’

  Matthew was disappointing. He was conceited and mean. He had taken the wrong tone. He could have had Charlotte’s love for nothing. Did he imagine that she would somehow reduce his value if he permitted friendship on these terms? Did he think she would boast about a ‘relationshi
p’? Why did he have to cut everything up into little pieces and classify it and introduce ideas of truth and exactness where they held no place at all? Who could say precisely what Charlotte had done or not done, suffered or not suffered, for love of Matthew? She had loved him always, thought of him always. Love is not time’s fool and rejects notions of exact measurement. How many hours per day of thinking about the beloved counts as being in love? Such ideas are absurd. Love laughs at locksmiths and also at Locke. Love belongs to the ideal.

  Such things, which she might have said to Matthew and could not say to Mitzi, Charlotte thought of afterwards. Of course I idealized him, thought Charlotte. How much smaller he seems in reality. Vain and touching and full of his little pretensions. He’s just a teddy bear after all. I suppose I shall go on caring about him, little as he deserves it. But from now on he is Mavis’s. And I am going not to wear that agony. Let him go now, I shall not trouble him again. She wept all the same, not only because of a bleak loss, but because a certain occupation of dreaming was gone forever. About Austin she occasionally reflected with an almost cold curiosity. But her interest in Austin had always derived from her interest in Matthew, and in a new concern for herself she now almost forgot him.

  Meanwhile Charlotte realized that Mitzi loved her. She was grateful. At first she had been Mitzi’s plaything, her little property. Now she was more than that. Charlotte felt no alarm. She had never particularly either liked or disliked the company of women. She had never really known a woman well, not even her sister, not even Alison. But then she had never hitherto met a woman like Mitzi. Mitzi crossed barriers and borders uncrossed before because she was oblivious of their existence. Mitzi looked after Charlotte and bossed her around. She also admired and revered Charlotte and deferred to her and wanted to be instructed by her. They found it quite uncannily easy to talk to each other. Mitzi could make Charlotte even chatter. She could make Charlotte laugh. Charlotte became increasingly conscious of the charm of her large handsome honest artless companion. She laughed at Mitzi and in a prescient way was made happy by her. She looked forward to her company. She let herself be made happy. A younger Charlotte would have analysed and considered and taken flight. The old grey Charlotte just smiled.

  One must have somebody to look after. To get out of Austin’s flat, to shake off all those messy smelly connections and horrible memories, was suddenly dreadfully necessary. Where should she go? Why, to Mitzi’s house of course. Charlotte stayed there one night, then two nights. Charlotte said she had always wanted a dog. Mitzi said she had always wanted a dog. Charlotte said one can’t keep a dog in London. Mitzi said then why not let’s live in the country. Mitzi had always wanted to live in the country. So, it turned out, had Charlotte. Life was suddenly full of simple pleasant animating possibilities. Charlotte looked at it all and laughed.

  ‘What are you laughing at, love?’ said Mitzi.

  ‘Nothing, little one. Yes, sandwich, thanks.’

  Charlotte was thinking, how astounded they’ll all be when it turns out I’m living in a cottage in Sussex with an Amazon and a big dog!

  ‘May I fill your glass?’

  ‘Thank you, dear boy.’

  Garth went on. ‘And I felt that Ludwig had cut me out with you.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘I kissed Dorina, you know, one day, behind the hedge, in the garden at Valmorana.’

  ‘What sort of kiss?’

  ‘Hard to describe. Passionate but non-committal. Sealed off. I don’t know what she thought about it. I felt pleased with myself at the time. Did she tell you this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘It made her wish you were really her son.’

  ‘Odd. That never occurred to me. I so absolutely can’t see Dorina as a mother.’

  ‘It’s a pity she never became one.’

  ‘My father would never have —’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I could ever have seen her as a mother, even a substitute one — But she was always special, taboo, young.’

  ‘Special, haunted.’

  ‘Haunted by my father? I wonder.’

  ‘I think Dorina was always a wanderer on the face of the earth, a sort of stray.’

  ‘From where? Aah — How well did you know my mother?’

  ‘Fairly well.’

  ‘You know she was really a gipsy? She didn’t just look like a gipsy, she was a gipsy. Only she kept it secret. I don’t know why.’

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘Everyone tells you everything in the end. Even I do.’

  ‘I’ve told you quite a few things this evening.’

  ‘Yes. And thank you. You didn’t mind my just turning up?’

  ‘I would have summoned you.’

  They both smiled.

  ‘So you see it was partly vindictiveness. I wanted to help Dorina, to make her talk. And I could have done.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Only of course I was terrified, it was so dangerous. It may seem quaint to you, but I am a bit afraid of my father.’

  ‘Did you fear him as a child?’

  ‘No, not really. But since — well, since my mother’s death, I suppose. I fear him now.’

  ‘He is to be feared.’

  ‘I’m interested that you think so. Anyway, when I found that you’d just walked in —’

  ‘I explained.’

  ‘Yes, yes. When I found you’d grabbed Dorina and were putting her through it, I felt you were taking away something that was mine. Also I was annoyed that you hadn’t “summoned” me, as you put it, earlier. You didn’t seem interested.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not at all. I scared Dorina really on that evening because I was furious with you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, that’s it, and thanks for listening, Uncle Matthew.’

  ‘Call me Matthew.’

  ‘I’ll try. It’ll take a bit of time.’

  The telephone rang and Matthew pulled himself up. Garth, who was sitting near the window, turned his chair and blinked into the golden evening light. A soft breeze was swaying the walnut tree in graceful play. The Irishman, with a long shadow, was clipping the edges of the lawn.

  Matthew was saying into the telephone, ‘Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . I see . . . Could I ring you back? . . . I’m going out to dinner . . . How late can I ring you? . . . Wait, I’ll just write down the college number . . . Good . . . Absolutely . . . Goodbye, then.’

  Matthew returned to his seat. ‘That was Ludwig.’

  ‘About Gracie?’

  ‘Yes. So you mean to shut yourself up and rewrite the novel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ll accept my little donation? You can pay it back if the novel’s a success.’

  ‘Yes. And thanks.’

  ‘Now I must throw you out. I’m having dinner with Mavis.’

  ‘How’s my father?’

  ‘Still dazed. He’ll be all right.’

  ‘Oh, I know that.’

  ‘He’ll come to look on it all as a kind of achievement.’

  ‘You know, you’re much more sort of cynical than I expected. I always thought of you as — You were going into a monastery or something, weren’t you? Why didn’t that come off?’

  ‘I’ll tell you another time. Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  The front door bell rang.

  ‘Could you go and see who it is?’ said Matthew, who was writing a cheque.

  In a moment or two Garth returned, closing the door behind him.

  ‘It’s Gracie. I told her to wait in the dining-room. I say, your clients do queue up.’

  Matthew thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘I’m going to funk Gracie. You can deal with her.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve got the tricks of the trade. I’m tired. And Mavis is waiting. I’m going out through the garden. Goodbye, and thanks for coming. See you again soon.’

  Matthew handed Garth the c
heque and went out through the glass door and disappeared.

  Garth stood for a moment or two in the radiantly lit evening-room. Then he returned to the dining-room, opened the door and stood in the doorway.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Matthew’s gone. He had an appointment.’

  Gracie came out into the hall. Garth had not seen her since his departure to America and he contemplated her now, a little woman, thinking how changed she was in her evident unhappiness. She was small and pale and somehow determined, no trace of tears, the wispy colourless hair banded the little head like steel and her face against her upturned coat collar was almost grim with sadness. He wondered now how he had recognized her.

  ‘I see. Garth, can I talk to you for a bit? I won’t stay long.’

  Garth hesitated. Then he said, ‘Sorry, I’ve got an appointment too.’ Enough was enough. He would not employ the tricks of the trade on Gracie. He said, ‘Would you like to ring Ludwig? He’s in his room in Oxford. The number’s beside the telephone. I’m just going away.’ He moved past her towards the front door and opened it.

  Gracie moved after him. She murmured, ‘I won’t ring. He’s coming back.’ She followed him out into the street. Garth closed the door.

  ‘Which way are you going, Gracie?’

  ‘This way.’

  ‘I’m going the other way. Goodnight then, and — Goodnight.’

  Gracie walked slowly away and Garth set off in the opposite direction. He turned two corners back to the King’s Road so as to give her plenty of time to get ahead, and then started walking at a leisurely pace towards Sloane Square station. He saw her in front of him again, a significant little figure in the vivid light, wandering along as if even her steps were uncertain, pausing when people jostled her, then creeping onward like a piece of wood in a sluggish stream. With her hands in her pockets and her air of pensive dejection she looked like an actress cast as a prostitute. At one point she paused and looked back and saw him. She gave no sign of recognition, but walked on a little faster until she came to the station. When Garth reached the station and descended to the platform she was gone.