A Word Child

  ‘Used to. Ah well. Off we go. Come on, Arthur. Good night, petkin.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Crystal. ‘Please wait — Hilary, can we — ’ She wanted to talk to me alone.

  I felt perverse and cruel. I would not even look at her. I rose. I had not taken off my coat. I helped Arthur on with his, humming loudly in a way which prevented conversation.

  ‘Could you stay, please?’ said Crystal loudly over the humming.

  ‘Sorry. Must go now. See you Saturday.’ I picked up the burgundy bottle, intending to pour out the last drop for myself, but my hand was trembling so much I had to put it down again. I gave Crystal one Took. She uttered a little quick — ‘ach — ’ I pushed Arthur out of the room, not giving him time for any farewell and followed him at once.

  Outside I started humming again. It was bitterly cold. Arthur took some time, as we walked along, fixing his layers of woolly cap down over his ears. He waited politely until, at Hammersmith Road, I stopped my roundelay.

  ‘How interesting that you know Jopling. Is he nice?’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Where did you know him?’

  ‘At college.’

  ‘It’ll be nice for him to find someone he knows in the office,’ said Arthur. Arthur was quite sincere in uttering these inane words. He actually thought a man like Jopling might feel lonely and be cheered up by catching sight of a boyhood chum.

  ‘We aren’t on terribly close terms, we haven’t seen each other for ages.’ It had been idiotic to include Arthur in that little scene, but I had somehow wanted to console myself by shocking Crystal and then leaving her without an explanation. At the same time I terribly needed Crystal to know. Always, all my life, it had helped me to bear dreadful things if Crystal simply knew about them. Even if there was nothing she could do, her loving sharing mind drew off some of the pain. I felt this now as I wondered what was going to happen and what on earth I was going to do about Gunnar Jopling. ‘I rather annoyed him at college because I won all the prizes. I expect we shall be quite polite but reserved when we meet. By the way, Arthur, I don’t want it known in the office that I know him. This is just between you and me.’

  ‘Of course I won’t say a word,’ said Arthur. The fact that Gunnar Jopling had won most of the available prizes since college and I had won none must I suppose have occurred to Arthur, or perhaps his asinine tactfulness prevented the thought from becoming conscious. Arthur’s mind tended to inhibit discrediting thoughts.

  We crossed the road and paused under a lamp post. ‘Well, good night.’

  ‘Hilary, it is all right, isn’t it, about me and Crystal? You’re not against it, are you? If you were — ’

  I intended to say Oh yes, splendid, but instead I picked up his words. ‘Well, what would you do if I were?’

  Arthur was silent for a moment and for the first time that evening I looked at his face. It was red and damp and burnished with the cold. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He looked at me mildly, exuding a sort of quietness.

  I looked at him, and his brown troubled eyes, all moist and intent and screwed up against the chill air. His absurd woolly cap gave him a foreign look, and with his moustache he looked like a French soldier in the 1914 War. Then he seemed suddenly to recede. He looked like a ghost. He vanished. I laughed, and still laughing turned away eastward along the Hammersmith Road. It was beginning to be slightly foggy and the lamp posts stretched away down the almost empty road, each one surrounded by a globular fuzz of light.

  FRIDAY

  IT WAS Friday morning. It was just about daylight as I reached the office. Fog had swept over London during the night, not one of the thick great fogs, but something more like a sea mist, greyish, not brown, and carrying suspended in its gauzy being cold globules of water which lightly covered the overcoats of early Londoners with a spider’s web of moisture which, in the warmth of tube trains and offices, turned the said overcoats into heavy steaming puddings. The woollen smell was once again pervasive, managing to carry with it overtones of dirt and sweat. I left my wet stinking coat on a coathanger in the cloakroom and hung up my umbrella and the cap which was having its first winter outing this morning, and went on to the Room, which was in darkness as usual at this time of day, and turned on the light, bringing the two long neon strips into action. After blinking twice on and off the cold very bright light revealed the Room.

  Everything was different. The first thing I saw was that now a carpet covered the whole of the floor. Then I saw that my desk had been put back into the window. Mrs Witcher’s desk stood behind mine, and Reggie Farbottom’s desk had been placed near the door where mine had lately been. There was even another picture, a print of the Duke of Wellington, hanging on the near wall over Reggie’s desk. The Room looked almost cosy. It must have been the carpet.

  ‘How do you like it, Mr Burde?’ said Skinker’s voice behind me.

  I turned round. Skinker and Arthur were standing in the corridor. They must have hidden in Arthur’s cupboard as I came along, waiting to witness my surprise. Arthur’s eyes were shining. I took in at once what an act of bravery this was on Arthur’s part and how much Crystal’s love must have inspired him to make him capable of it.

  I did not smile. I said, ‘I can’t have Mrs Witcher behind me looking over my shoulder. Please put her desk back where it was before.’

  Skinker and Arthur hastened to move Mrs Witcher’s desk and push it against the wall.

  ‘Good. That’s all right now.’ Then I smiled. (This was for Skinker’s benefit. Arthur could sufficiently read my face.)

  ‘We thought you’d be pleased, din’ we,’ said Skinker.

  ‘I am pleased,’ I said.

  ‘I want to see them two’s faces when they sees the fetty-comply.’

  ‘Wherever did you get the carpet?’ I asked Arthur.

  ‘I went right up into the attics,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether we’re supposed to. I found several rooms just full of oddments, old bits of carpet and broken chairs and stuff. I found the Duke up there too. I hope I won’t get into trouble.’ The vague idea of ‘getting into trouble’ dogged Arthur’s office life quite a lot. It was a real credit to him that he had faced the danger of it for my sake.

  ‘Thank you, Arthur, thank you, Skinker. I appreciate this.’

  Mrs Witcher came in. The three of us watched her in silence. She took it all in, then marched past us to her desk. ‘Clever dicks, aren’t you!’ she said over her shoulder. She sat down.

  Reggie arrived. ‘I say, who did this?’

  ‘We did,’ I said. ‘Any objections?’

  ‘Bloody selfish bugger, aren’t you,’ said Reggie. ‘Mean selfish bugger. Isn’t he, Edith? All right, little boy, fix it your way.’ Edith made no reply. Reggie sat down. We had won.

  I moved to the door with my allies. Skinker departed grinning with satisfaction. I went with Arthur into his cupboard. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That’s all right, Hilary. I hope they won’t mind about the carpet.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I say — you didn’t — last night — ’

  ‘Tell you what you wanted to hear. I’ll tell you now. Of course I don’t mind about you and Crystal. You have my blessing for what it’s worth. I’ve never managed to wish myself much luck. But I wish you two plenty.’

  ‘Oh thank heavens,’ said Arthur. I mean, I knew you didn’t — but it’s jolly good, jolly good to hear you say that. It’s the only thing I need to — ’

  ‘Make you perfectly happy.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘That’s fine then. Everything’s perfect.’

  I went back into the Room across to my desk in the window. Big Ben’s face, still illuminated, looked at me through the fog. I had missed him.

  ‘I hope you’re enjoying your mean little revenge,’ said Edith.

  ‘Even then he couldn’t do it himself,’ said Reggie. ‘All he could do was cry until Arthur took over.’

  I started to look at a case. Soon the Room
would know all about Arthur’s engagement. The news would be greeted with screams.

  The lights suddenly went out.

  ‘Bloody electricians, fuck them,’ said Reggie’s voice in the murk. There was a general sound of chairs moving, people emerging into the corridor. Laughter.

  ‘Candles coming!’ said Skinker’s voice.

  I stayed where I was looking out of the window into the grey gloom. Big Ben had been extinguished too. I thought of Biscuit. Who was she and would I ever see her again?

  ‘The candles are rather fun, aren’t they?’ said Tommy.

  London was still in darkness. Tommy had tried to make a little feast out of it. I was the skeleton. I said nothing.

  Tommy’s sitting-room, with a paraffin heater, was rather cold. She had laid an Indian cloth this evening, yellow with brown commas on it. There were six candles in modern pottery candlesticks. Our supper was fillet steak and salad and a treacle tart which she had made herself. She knew I liked treacle tart. I could not eat. I drank some of the St Emilion. She provided the wine. It tasted foul, but I drank some more. I considered telling Tommy everything. I should soon have to tell somebody. But no, not Tommy. What a bond such a confession would make.

  Tommy was looking her most Victorian. It was partly the ringlets. She was looking tired, which suited her. The flickering light brought out the pitting of her face, illumined against a dark background, but did not reveal the colour of her eyes. Her little nose and mouth were wrinkled up with puzzlement and concern and love. Tonight she was wearing a white lacy blouse with a jet brooch in the form of a cross, a long black waistcoat and an ankle-length black velvet skirt, hitched up a little to reveal one delicate calf and one slim ankle in white openwork stocking, and one little velvet slipper. She had small feet. Her silver-ringed hands were busy pushing her trailing hair nervously back over the high collar of the blouse whose pure whiteness the candles were celebrating. Of all this I was, in spite of everything, aware and, in the curious way in which sex can poke its preoccupying presence into almost any state of affairs, I even found her attractive this evening. For me, the tides of her attractiveness ebbed and flowed under no discernible laws. When she did attract me it was a matter of something to be got over with, something which temporarily interrupted the ordinary courtesies of tenderness and kindness. I considered stretching my hand out to her across the yellow tablecloth as she was willing me to do, but I did not. Especially as things were now, I would have to get rid of Tommy.

  She was now at her most patient and ingenious. She tried everything, every sort of conversation, every sort of silence. The slice of treacle tart, drenched in cream and quietly soaking lay untouched on my plate. I drank a little more wine and grimaced. I had said nothing about Crystal and Arthur. I could not face Tommy’s joy.

  ‘Would you like some whisky, darling?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you want for Christmas?’

  ‘A loaded revolver.’

  ‘What is it — Hilary — dear heart — there’s something. And it’s not just me.’

  ‘Sorry, Tomkins.’

  ‘You’re like a dead person tonight, a zombie.’

  ‘I wish I was dead.’

  ‘Don’t speak so, it’s wicked. Tell me. Tell me a little. Tell it in an allegory.’

  ‘You are a funny girl. I like you sometimes.’

  ‘I like you sometimes. Tell.’

  ‘I can’t, Tommy. I did something very wrong long ago. And I can’t get away from it ever.’ This was more than I had ever said to Tommy before and she knew it. I heard her little thrilled triumphant intake of breath and I shrank from her.

  ‘Go on. Please. You know I love you. I just want to be you. To be a place where you are — where you spread out and are relieved of pain.’

  ‘I can’t be relieved of pain,’ I said. ‘Sin and pain are inextricably mixed. Only Jesus Christ could sort them out.’

  ‘Let me be Jesus Christ. After all — they say — we can be — ’

  ‘No, you can’t be, Tomkins, sorry. You’re just you. You’ve made a treacle tart which I’m sorry I can’t eat. I hope it won’t be wasted.’

  ‘Treacle keeps.’

  ‘You’re the little Scottish girl who knows that treacle keeps. My trouble is cosmic.’

  After a pause Tommy said, ‘Aren’t you thinking rather too grandly of yourself? You are just you after all, with the crinkly hair and the crooked face and the odd socks on — ’

  ‘That’s Laura Impiatt’s joke.’

  ‘Why do you bring Laura in here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not because she’s relevant.’

  ‘It’s Laura. That’s your trouble. Laura. Why did you bring her in suddenly?’

  ‘Oh, Tommy, stop — I’m going home.’

  ‘Why did you suddenly mention Laura?’

  ‘I don’t know. My mind is wandering. Of course I think too grandly of myself. Who am I to have a cosmic sorrow? Come, Thomas, be kind to me.’

  ‘Do you promise it isn’t — ?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. Tommy. I must go. I’m very sorry.’

  Tommy got up and rushed at my knees in a way she sometimes had. She was kneeling between my knees, her hands fumbling for my hands, her hair, smelling of shampoo (she always washed it on Fridays) tumbling about over the lower part of my jacket. ‘Oh little Thomas — ’

  ‘My love — oh my love — let me help you — I love you so much — ’

  ‘I can’t think why. Tommy, we must part.’

  ‘Don’t say that like that when we are communicating — ’

  ‘We aren’t communicating. You are in some kind of rapture. I am as cold as a caller herring.’

  ‘You want me.’

  ‘I don’t.’ I thrust her roughly away before it should become too apparent that I did. She fell backwards, sitting upon the floor. I got up.

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘OK, Thomson. Good night.’

  ‘Don’t go. Tell me. Tell me what it was you did. Tell me in an allegory.’

  I left her. The streets were black except for the little glowworm lights here and there of people making their way along with torches. But there was a celebration up above. The huge brilliant arch of the Milky Way was visible, rejoicing silently in Reason’s ear. The stars were so crowded together, they formed the segment of one golden ring. Yet the light they gave was to each other, they seemed not to know of us, and there was no brightness here below. I knew my London blindfold however. I began to walk north. It took me nearly half an hour to walk from Tommy’s flat to Arthur’s. It was half past ten when I rang Arthur’s bell. A moment later I was with him in his little room lighted by one candle. I had decided to tell Arthur the whole story.

  I WILL now tell the story which is at the centre of this story, and which it was necessary to delay until the moment when, in this story, I told it. I will tell it now, as far as it can be told by me, truthfully and as it was, and not as I told it that Friday night to Arthur. In telling Arthur I omitted certain things, though nothing of importance, and I doubtless told it in a way which was sympathetic to myself, though, since I gave him the main facts, I could not in telling it excuse myself. I also told it somewhat in fits and starts, with pauses in which Arthur asked questions. And there were details which I filled in later when, in the days that followed, I spoke of these matters to him again. I told him because he was (I now believed) going to marry Crystal, and because he was a gentle harmless being, and because I had to tell somebody, I had to let the monstrous thing out of the sealed sphere which composed my consciousness and Crystal’s. It is strange to think that on that momentous summer day in the past when at that party in my college rooms Crystal had cried out ‘This is the happiest day of my life’, Anne Jopling was actually present. She was there in that room on that day.

  I first met Gunnar Jopling when I was an undergraduate and he was a young don in another subject (he was a historian) and at another college. He and my tutor, a mild man called Eldridge, gave a cl
ass together on ‘French Literature and the Revolution’, and I attended this class. It took place on Tuesdays round a long table covered with a green baize cloth in a rather dark room in Gunnar’s college. It was one of those rather select classes with a restricted membership and all present thought well of themselves for being there. I was determined to be the star. I already had a considerable reputation as a linguistic polymath.

  This was not the first time I had seen Gunnar. The very first time I saw him was across the High Street. He was striding along, wearing his gown, arm in arm with Anne. Someone said, ‘There’s Gunnar Jopling.’ ‘Who’s the pretty girl?’ ‘Mrs Gunnar Jopling.’ Gunnar had some sort of special reputation, the way some people have for no very clear reason. Of course he was clever, but there were plenty of clever people in Oxford. His appearance was striking, but again not exceptionally so. He was six foot two (an inch taller than me), a big burly chap (he had been a rugger blue and was also a notable boxer), thick straight fair hair and blue eyes and a very smooth glowing pink and white complexion. His eyes were a bright summer blue with a darker mottle, rather striking. He had a Scandinavian grandparent. He was himself English of the English and very public school.