The Girl in a Swing

remarked. 'Them and dahlias. That's why you always wants

  t'ave plenty. Then when it rains you got some consolation,

  see?')

  From the lawn I could hear Kathe playing a Chopin

  220

  prelude, elegant, melancholy, capturing in the subtlest of

  nets a bird whose beauty - whose very existence - none had

  imagined until his genius found it out. I stood still in the

  rain to listen; and then, laughing at my own rapt absurdity

  in standing there getting wetter and wetter, went on up

  the garden and in through the open French windows.

  Kathe looked up from the piano, spreading her arms wide,

  but I stood still, smiling and shaking my head.

  'Don't stop playing.'

  She finished the prelude, got up, came across the room

  and took me in her arms.

  'Nice day?'

  'It is now. This is what you wanted, isn't it? Your real

  life - a wet Tuesday evening, rain in the garden and a husband

  coming home with a packet of fish?'

  'M'm! Better than all your old eagles and trumpets. It

  was eagles and trumpets you said, wasn't it?'

  I laughed. 'Yes, but I wonder you remember. I thought

  you were a bit preoccupied at the time.'

  'Of course I remember. I remember everything - except

  what I'm determined to forget.'

  'Have you had a nice day?'

  'Ja - just me and Mrs Spencer. We get along fine.' She

  pressed herself closer, then suddenly gave me a sharp little

  shake. 'Oh, but, Alan, I forgot - I'm cross, I'm so cross! I

  made a chocolate mousse for supper, but I put one egg too

  many, so it doesn't get stiff.'

  'It does, darling, I assure you.'

  'Put the fish down, then, you stupid. Nur ein Englander

  kann Fisch mil Leidenschaft verwechseln! Now, then-'

  After dinner, as we were lazily watching the news on television,

  she said, 'Alan, do you know you have missing a

  button from the sleeve of that coat?'

  'Yes, I do, actually; and what's more, I've got it in my

  pocket.'

  'I'll put it on for you now, then. Ach, where's that nice

  work-box of your mother's? It's supposed to live on the top

  of that china cabinet. I'm sure I saw it there. Where's it

  gone?'

  221

  'Oh, I think I know. I seem to remember Flick had it last

  night to mend something of Angela's. She'll have left it up

  in her room. She always was a great leaver of things around,

  you know. I'll pop up and get it for you. And I'll bet you

  anything you like she'll have left something else of her own

  or Angela's that we'll have to send on. She nearly always

  does, whenever she comes.'

  'I don't think so, darling. Not this time. Mrs Spencer did

  the room this morning, and she didn't say she'd found anything.'

  When I came back with the work-box I said, 'Told you,

  didn't I? I could slay Flick, I really could. It'll be quite an

  awkward parcel, too. How could even she have overlooked

  such an obvious thing as that?'

  'What is it?'

  'A stuffed toy of Angela's. Lying in full view in the armchair,

  if you please.'

  'What, that blue teddy bear?'

  'No, not Blue Teddy. It's a green tortoise, quite big. I

  didn't notice it while they were here, but obviously it can

  only be Angela's.'

  I was fiddling with the television as I said this, and had

  my back to Kathe. After a few moments, however, as she

  did not reply, I looked round. She was staring at me wideeyed,

  the fingers of one hand between her teeth. At length,

  in a very low voice, she asked,

  'What did you say?'

  'I said "a green tortoise". Darling, whatever's the matter?'

  Still staring, she made no answer. I went across to her.

  'Kathe! What is it?'

  'No! No!' she cried, rising to her feet. 'There isn't a green

  tortoise, Alan, there isn't!' She put her hands on my shoulders

  and shook me. 'I tell you, Angela hadn't anything like that

  with her at all! There's no green tortoise!'

  I was taken completely by surprise. 'Darling, what - what

  on earth? -'

  She stamped her foot and then, burying her face in her

  hands, sobbed, 'I tell you there isn't a green tortoise! Go

  and look, Alan! Go and look! Go and look!'

  222

  'But darling, I've just seen it, for God's sake! Can't you

  tell me -'

  'Go and look again!' she shouted, banging her clenched

  fist on the top of the piano.

  'Well, come upstairs with me, then, and I'll show it to

  you!'

  'No! Do as I say! Go and look again!'

  Blessedly, I gave way to anger, for otherwise I would have

  given way to fear. I was afraid of her hysteria and of what

  I did not understand.

  'You silly cow, I'll bring the bloody tortoise down and

  beat you over the head with it,' I said, and strode out of

  the room.

  Even before I'd got upstairs I felt sorry. Kathe and I had

  never quarrelled, and I knew she was highly strung. I recalled

  what Tony had said about the burden of great beauty - 'It's

  a factor you have to remember to bear in mind all the time

  and never take for granted.' Obviously toy tortoises - or some

  tortoise or other, anyway - had unpleasant associations for

  her, and if her reaction was excessive, I must be patient and

  off-set it against the joy and delight with which she had

  filled my life.

  I went into Flick's bedroom. There was no tortoise. Against

  the back of the armchair lay a green cushion which I now

  remembered had always had its place there.

  I stood looking at it. I felt disturbed - even a little

  frightened. A perfectly understandable mistake, of course,

  in the failing light. I'd been fully expecting to clobber Flick almost

  hoping to, perhaps - so I'd seen something that my

  nasty, vindictive unconscious had wanted to see. However,

  there were two snags to that explanation, though neither

  would weigh a straw with anybody else. First, why had I

  entirely forgotten the existence of a familiar cushion which

  had had its place in that room more or less since I could

  remember? And the second snag was the answer to the first.

  Whatever it might or might not be possible to convince anyone

  else of, I myself knew - in the same way that a man

  protesting after a traffic accident often knows perfectly well,

  underneath, that most of the blame is really his - that when

  223

  I had come upstairs the previous time, what I had seen had

  been a stuffed toy tortoise. Obviously no tortoise had really

  been there - that was another matter. I just knew for certain

  what my brain had registered.

  I thought about it for a minute or two. Clearly, my only

  course was to accept that I had made a mistake; to go along

  with what anyone else would be bound to say - Tony or

  anybody I might think of telling. As far as telling went, indeed,

  I might as well save my breath. 'I thought I saw' where

  would that get me? Meanwhile, by some unlucky

&n
bsp; coincidence, I had upset poor Kathe.

  I went downstairs again to the drawing-room. Kathe had

  switched off the television and was standing on the hearthrug,

  evidently waiting for me to come back. She had dried

  her eyes and, though still looking apprehensive and upset,

  seemed to have recovered herself.

  'What kept you so long, Alan?'

  'You were right and I was wrong. I'm terribly sorry.'

  'You mean - there isn't a tortoise at all?'

  'No, there isn't. It was just a cushion in the chair.'

  'Then why did you think you saw one? Why?'

  'Heaven knows. A silly mistake. Darling, I'm so sorry to

  have spoken as I did. I'm really very sorry indeed. Please

  forgive me.'

  ']a, bitte,' she replied absently.

  Frowning and staring abstractedly down into the fireplace,

  she seemed only partly relieved. At length she said,

  'Well, it's strange - but never mind. I'm the one who ought

  to ask to be forgiven. Shall I explain? You see -'

  I kissed her. 'No, don't! Never complain, never explain.

  It's all over.'

  'It's nothing at all, really. I-'

  'Well, then, it doesn't matter, does it? Look, it's stopped

  raining. Let's have a walk round the garden before it gets

  dark. I'm sure Mum's gum-boots will fit you. Did Jack come

  in today?'

  'Oh, yes, he did, and he said did you want him to get the

  sticks for the runner beans or would you be getting them

  yourself? And he wants you to look over the vegetables

  224

  and have a word with him tomorrow. He said it was early

  closing day, would you be free in the afternoon? I didn't

  know about early closing day. I felt so silly.'

  'I'm sorry; I clean forgot to tell you. Wednesday is early

  closing day in Newbury. Come on, then - clump, clump,

  clump.'

  It was only later, when we were in bed, that I remembered

  I'd forgotten to telephone my mother.

  Everything that happened must be remembered in the light the

  watery, glittering light - of our continual love-making,

  which shone like a dazzling sun over all else - work, money,

  weather, other relationships, the flow of days and the course

  of the summer. No one can ever have had more intense

  pleasure of a woman than I of Kathe. I suppose a few people,

  here and there, may have had as much, but it would not be

  possible for anyone to have had more. Always, I was transported

  by the sense of a blessing beyond belief, as though I

  had been magically conveyed into a world without cold,

  without pain, disease or anxiety. It was she who had conferred

  upon me the power to perceive that these things were

  mere figments, that they did not exist, had never existed at

  all. As I held her in my arms, feeling her limbs about me, I

  would look into her eyes, crying, 'Oh, it's here, it's now,

  it's you!' as though this were some incredible revelation as

  indeed it was. And then would gush the delirious, melting

  pleasure, the fire that consumed itself and yet returned.

  Kathe - and this I have never fathomed - understood my

  body better than I myself. Sometimes, when I thought my

  desire about to be renewed, she would hush me, turning me

  to sleep; or rouse me up to leisure or work. At others she

  would bring into raging excitement the loins which I had

  thought spent for twenty-four hours. Nor in this was she

  merely gratifying her own appetite. 'Come on, mein Lieber,'

  she would say. 'I've done, but you haven't. Didn't you know?

  I'll prove it to you, shall I?' In love she was not so much

  unselfish as self-forgotten, a dancer moving through music

  to rest and silence.

  225

  In my continual desire she had the strongest possible hold

  over me; yet she never exploited it. I don't believe she ever

  thought of the matter in that way - except for her own

  amusement and pleasure, in the bed and there alone. 'I drive

  you crazy, don't I?' she would say, tantalizing or frustrating

  me as part of the game. Yet she never made use of this for

  any other purpose. Rather, her power poured inexhaustibly,

  fulfilling, like a high waterfall, no use whatever except the

  flowing of the river to the sea: so that often the ordinary,

  diurnal world seemed unreal to me, all day-to-day landmarks

  having been submerged or swept away in this flood of

  voluptuous largesse. An ocean, she called it; and I - I set out

  on that water, passed long days upon it, learned its moods,

  watched the sky, caught the tide. Like a mariner I was its

  slave but also its master; for unless I sailed upon it, it had

  no meaning and no use. Yet as with the sea, to seek to dominate

  or command it would have been folly.

  I never raised the subject of contraception, regarding it as

  none of my business. I had no idea whether she was doing

  anything or not. If she wished to speak of it, no doubt she

  would.

  The marriage of true minds - the notion of bodily love as a

  kind of staircase to the spiritual - all this fell to pieces under

  the waterfall. The purpose of coupling was neither to procreate

  nor to refresh or gratify the participants. Rather, it

  was the appointed destiny of lovers, the compulsive service

  of a goddess, self-justified as fighting to a viking. Kathe's

  love - Kathe herself - could have no expression and no

  meaning beyond or apart from her body - and mine. Though

  she was endlessly amusing, the best company imaginable, I

  recall little or nothing of what we said to one another at such

  times. Yet paradoxically, the pleasure she imparted was never

  solely physical, like a square meal, a hot bath or carpet

  slippers. Sometimes I could almost have found it in myself

  to wish that it had been; for the truth was, though her

  magnanimity never for a moment suggested it, that often

  I felt out of my depth and altogether bowled over and fearful

  of such abandon, such profundity of excitement. At these

  226

  moments I felt afraid of what I could not grasp, of the

  mystery hanging always cloudy round her, the spirit whose

  servant she seemed to be. Waking in the solitary night, I

  would fancy to myself that it was not she but this spirit,

  arbitrary as wind, rain or mist, which had directed her heart

  upon me rather than another. I both trembled and exulted

  at my fortune. Although I knew, now, that she loved me

  sincerely (she could hardly have said or done more to prove

  it), nevertheless she sometimes put me in mind of the bewitched

  princess whose bridegroom dies at sunset. There

  was only one sense in which I truly knew her. In the pit of

  the waterfall I gasped and struggled in ecstasies of delicious

  terror, drifting out inert at last to cry, like a child who has

  been tossed and tumbled breathless, 'Do it again! Do it

  again!' And thus the stallion Eternity mounted the mare of

  Time.

  Although, now and then, I found her out - by chance and

  not design - in some little duplicity, this merely h
eightened

  rather than diminished my joy. One evening of silver sunset,

  when she had finished playing the first movement of an early

  Beethoven sonata - a little stumblingly but with obvious

  understanding and feeling -1 said, 'Kathe, I find it very hard

  to believe what you told me in K0benhavn - that you don't

  know anything about sonata form. Don't tell me you just

  played that movement without any idea of how it's put together.'

  'I told you? I never told you anything like that! I remember

  that evening in K0benhavn perfectly well - how could I

  ever forget it? I asked you whether you could follow a rose,

  and I said that one day you should teach me how to listen

  to music properly. And haven't you, m'm?'

  'But surely you said -'

  'Darling, you were talking about the first movement of

  the Mozart concerto not being in regular sonata form. What

  could I say? It was never intended to be; it's far more cornplex,

  meant for entertaining, sort of operatic - oh, words,

  f'ff! Where are the records?'

  227

  An hour later, a wiser and if possible even happier man, I

  said, 'But Kathe, admit it, you did pretend that evening that

  you didn't know all this, didn't you?'

  'Do you think I was going to know better than the beautiful

  Englishman I wanted to love me, and him so serious

  and sincere? Oh! -oh, come here, stupid one!'

  I began to have second thoughts, too, about the amount

  of help she was going to be in the business. She finished

  Geoffrey Godden and plunged straight on into Bernard Watney

  on English Blue and White. This she kept at home, and

  in spare moments in the shop read Arnold Mountford on

  Staffordshire Salt-Glazed Stoneware. One afternoon, about a

  week after Flick's departure, she came into the office, where

  I was struggling to explain to Mrs Taswell the difference

  between V.A.T. and import duty, and silently placed on the

  desk a plain little Staffordshire teapot, about four inches

  high.

  I frowned at it, puzzled.

  'That's not part of our stock, Kathe, surely?"

  'It is now. What do you think of it?'

  I picked it up and examined it. It was drabware salt-glaze,

  with applied reliefs in white pipe clay and some ornaments

  of blue-stained clay. It had a twig knop to the lid and a

  handle and spout of crabstock form, also in white clay. Altogether

  a very modest, unassuming and delightful little piece.

  'What d'you mean, it is now?'

  'Well, a man I didn't know came in while you were out.

  He knew you and thought you'd probably be interested in

  buying it. He said he was a dealer at Abingdon but thought

  it was more in your line than his. When I said you weren't in,

  he was just going to take it away to sell it in Hungerford,

  but I stopped him.'

  'You actually bought it off your own bat?'

  'Whatever that means, darling. I asked him what he could

  tell me about it and he said he thought it must have been

  made in about 1790, but I think it looks more like 1740,

  don't you? He was asking seventy pounds and in the end I

  gave him fifty. I wrote him a cheque on the joint account.'

  228

  'Good Lord! It's worth a lot more than that at today's

  prices.'

  'Well, that's what I thought, too. To tell you the truth I

  was rather nervous about spending your money, but it

  seemed a shame to let it go. It looked so nice.'

  A week later we sold it for ?135.

  Two or three times during that fortnight I came home

  to find Tony either in the drawing-room or talking to Kathe

  in the kitchen as she went about preparing dinner. They

  always seemed happy and animated.

  'It's quite true,' Kathe was saying one evening as I came

  through the French windows - this time I was carrying a

  bottle of Bual, which I proceeded to open, pour and hand

  round without interrupting the conversation - 'It's perfectly

  true, as far as I could ever make out, that the few things

  Jesus had to say about sex were sensible, like everything else

  He said. It's just that - well, by and large you get the feeling

  of someone who wasn't really terribly interested in sex.'

  'I think that's right enough,' answered Tony. 'The times

  were different, of course. I personally believe He was addressing

  Himself first and foremost to the people of His

  own time and country.'

  'Well, I mean, it's just that some other religions - I

  don't know anything about it really, but I get the impression

  that other religions have - oh, it's so difficult in English have

  given more importance to the ideal of sexual love between