and gave my entire attention up to Kathe. She was
following the Confession silently in her prayer book.
'... provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation
against us.' At this she gave a quick, low sob, and for a few
seconds buried her face in her hands. Then, with the air of
someone strained to the utmost and making every endeavour
not to break down, she turned back to the book.
'... The remembrance of them is grievous unto us. The
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burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, Have
mercy upon us ...'
Tears were coursing down the one cheek that I could see.
I was within an ace of asking the verger to help me to cornpel
her to go out; yet I remained kneeling beside her as Tony
spoke the comfortable words and proceeded with the service
to the conclusion of the Prayer of Consecration.
'... Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of
me.'
Tony had another little practice, by which he was accustomed
to indicate to his communicants the moment to
come forward. He would spread his arms and say, 'Come, for
all things are now ready.' He said it now, and at once, like
someone consumed with tension and haste, Kathe got up
and went quickly towards the altar. Being the first to get
there, she knelt down at the right-hand end of the rails,
while I, following her, knelt immediately to her left.
I now had a sudden, happy idea. What a fool I'd been not
to have thought of it before! But after all, I hadn't had much
previous experience. Of course! It was her condition that
was the real cause of her emotional state. This, though still
distressing, at least explained the situation and why she was
so unlike herself.
I whispered, 'Are you feeling sick?' but she made no reply
as Tony approached with the paten.
'The body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for
thee ... Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died
for thee ...'
Concluding, he placed the wafer in Kathe's cupped hands
and moved on to me. Swallowing my wafer and glancing
sideways once more, I saw her hands tightly closed at her
sides, lips set and chin pressed to her chest, and offered up
a wordless prayer for her comfort and help.
Tony returned to the altar, picked up the chalice and came
back to us.
'The Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for
thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink
this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee,
and be thankful.'
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He gave the chalice to Kathe.
The next moment, so suddenly that no one could anticipate
it, Kathe, clutching the full chalice, collapsed on the floor
and lay senseless. The wine spilled over the rails, over my
clothes, over the kneeler and Kathe's skirt. One or two
people further along started to their feet. I heard a woman's
high-pitched voice, 'Oh God, what's happened?'
Kathe was sprawling face down. Disregarding the spilled
wine, I lifted her by the shoulders and turned her on her
back, and as I did so her left hand, which had been clenched
under her body, fell open. In it was the wafer she had been
given. I picked it up quickly and swallowed it, hoping no
one else had noticed.
Tony could hardly have handled the situation better. While
a red-haired man whom I did not know was helping me to lift
Kathe, he turned to the other communicants and said quietly
and authoritatively, 'Our Lord would wish us to take first
things first. May I ask you all to go back to your places,
please, and wait quietly until we're able to go on with the
service?' Then he and the verger helped the two of us to carry
Kathe bodily out of the church.
As we reached the car he said, 'I'm terribly sorry, Alan;
but I do hope you won't feel too upset. I'm sure it's nothing
serious. People quite often faint in church, you know. She'll
be all right when she gets home. You'll understand I've got to
go back now, but I'll ring up as soon as I can.'
At this moment Kathe gave a low moan, half-opened her
eyes and looked about her in obvious confusion and distress.
The red-haired man supported her while I opened the nearside
door of the car, and together we settled her on the front
seat. Tony, saying, 'Good. I'm sure she'll be feeling better
soon,' put his hand for a moment on my shoulder. Then he
and the verger went back to the church.
The red-haired man said, 'Would you like me to come
with you?' and I, feeling I'd probably get on better without
him, replied, 'No, thanks. It's very good of you and I'm
grateful, but I think it'll probably be best if I just take her
straight home myself.'
'Sure you'll be able to manage?' he asked, no doubt
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anxious not to feel that he had not done everything he could.
'Oh, yes, she'll be all right now,' I replied, nodding three or
four times to convince him that I was quite clear about it.
He remained standing in the road while I backed out, and
raised a hand in acknowledgement as I drove away.
I dare say he thought she was epileptic. I never heard
what they did about the wine.
23
WHEN we were out of sight of the church and about halfway
down West Mills I stopped the car, took Kathe's hand
and asked, 'How do you feel now, darling? Any better?'
She was slumped in the seat - huddled up, head bowed,
arms crossed on her breast, like some poor old woman
hurrying home on a winter's night. She did not answer at
once. At length she whispered, 'I wasn't feeling ill. I wasn't
ill.'
'Well, light-headed - not yourself - whatever it was. Don't
worry, I'll look after you. Would you like a little stroll along
the towpath - get some fresh air - or shall we just go home?'
She seemed about to reply, but then began to sob, staring
sightlessly past me towards the other side of the road and
the swallows flashing darkly up and down the length of the
Kennet. I wanted to say, 'Come on, now, pull yourself together,'
or something conventional of the sort, but this
weeping possessed a kind of distance and dignity which
silenced me. So might Clytemnestra, I thought, have wept
alone in the palace, both for the past and for what was appointed
to come. I could not intrude upon this grief like
some bustling old nanny. It must burn itself out; then,
perhaps, I might be able to get through to her. I started the
car again and drove home in silence.
She seemed almost unaware of her surroundings. Walking
slowly into the house, she sat down on the sofa and continued
to cry as though it made no difference where she was
or who was with her. I couldn't think what the hell to do. If
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this was an early symptom of pregnancy, it went beyond
anything I'd ever heard of. Could it be some kind of nervous
breakdown? What exactly was a ner
vous breakdown, anyway?
I remembered my father once saying, 'I don't think you
can define it exactly, but what I call a nervous breakdown is
when someone can't keep up appearances any more - gets
past caring what other people see or think.'
I went and got the thermometer. She made no resistance indeed,
she did not react at all - as I put it into her mouth.
I said, 'Under your^ tongue, dear, properly,' and she nodded
without looking at me. I timed the minute and took the
thermometer out. Her temperature was normal.
I went into the kitchen and made some coffee. When I
came back she had stopped crying and was staring before
her, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers.
I said, 'Come on, Kathe, you drink this up and you'll feel
better.' She took the cup and drank it straight down, as
though to do what I asked was the easiest way of being left
alone.
I knelt on the floor beside her and put an arm round her
shoulders.
'Listen, darling, whatever it is, it can't be as bad as all
that. You say you love me, and you know how much I love
you. It's upsetting and worrying for me to see you in this
state. Think of all our blessings; think how happy and lucky
we are. You're in Bull Banks; the castle, where nothing can
get in to hurt us, remember? And you're my beautiful Kathe,
the most wonderful lover in the world, who found the Girl
in a Swing. Look at her, over there in the cabinet! Go on,
look! We're going to be rich, and you're going to have our
baby, and whatever's past is past.'
After a long pause she answered, 'It isn't. O God, I'm so
frightened!'
'But what of, Kathe? What of, for heaven's sake? You
must tell me! It's what I'm here for!'
I raised her to her feet, led her out into the sunny garden
and walked her down the length of the herbaceous border,
where the bees were already lumbering about among the
snapdragons and Canterbury bells.
320
'Come on, now,' I said. 'Look round, and tell me the names
of everything you can see. Look!'
She only clung to me, burying her face on my shoulder.
'Schatten!' she whispered. 'Shadows! ^Coming closer!'
'Damn it, I will get to the bottom of this! Did you quarrel
with your parents and leave home? Or did you treat some
other lover badly in K0benhavn? What was it?'
She shook her head.
'Well, then, did you steal some money at work, or cheat
somebody? Things like that can be put right, you know. We
can get in touch - we can return the money anonymously.
And as for me, Kathe, I told you before, I wouldn't mind
about anything, anything you've done. Nothing could alter
my love for you!'
At length, faced with her listlessness and lack of response
- lack of hope, even, it seemed - I led her indoors again and
took her upstairs to lie down. She was amenable to whatever
I suggested, seeming, like a sick animal, to be seeking no
alleviation, to be indifferent to everything and to want only
to apply herself to the all-demanding business of suffering.
That she was mercurial, that she often used to act up and
play a part for effect - this much, of course, I knew well.
But this, now, was neither acting nor exaggerated. From time
to time she shuddered spasmodically, and seemed to cower
on the bed. Then she would lie still, breathing slowly, her
eyes anywhere but on mine.
I had been sitting silently beside her for perhaps half an
hour when she said, as though speaking to someone else,
'I was a fool to think I could go there.'
I didn't reply. It was not for me to coax or importune her.
What I had to say I had said and she had heard. All I could
do now was to stay with her.
During the morning the telephone rang several times.
People had heard, of course, what had happened at church
and rang up to inquire and to offer sympathy. I told Tony
that Kathe was better now, but lying down for the morning;
and apologized for the trouble we had given him. 'My fault,'
he said, with typical generosity. 'I ought to have noticed,
when she came forward, that she wasn't herself.'
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Mrs Stannard, always one to put two and two together,
said, kindly enough, 'Perhaps you ought not really to have
taken her to early service, Alan, my dear. I'd look after her
very carefully for the next few weeks, if I were you. Give her
my love, won't you? But now I'm on, I simply must ask you
about your mother. I saw it in the Newbury News and I
just couldn't believe my eyes! Do tell me -'
All that afternoon I sat in the bedroom; sometimes reading,
sometimes watching, out of the window, the birds in
the garden and the great cumulus clouds drifting over Cottington's
Clump. I went downstairs and got a meal - I can't
remember what - and Kathe ate it, still like one for whom
to comply is easier than to resist. Later, I brought up my
tweezers, vice and other equipment and passed the time in
tying trout flies.
About half-past six, as the shadows of the cypress and the
silver birch were lengthening across the lawn, she sat up,
held out her arms to me and said, 'Alan, come here.'
I went and sat on the bed and she embraced me, her hands
gently stroking my body.
'What I have, I have. Why,' she said suddenly, with surprise,
'I'm still in my clothes! You didn't undress me?'
'I thought you'd undress if you wanted to.'
'Undress me now.' She stood up. 'Do you remember, in the
hotel, when I asked you to undress me, and you thought I
wanted you to make love to me?'
'I know you better now, don't I?'
'No, you don't. I want you to make love to me.'
Not surprisingly, at that moment I felt little enough
spontaneous desire, but if she was feeling less wretched, and
returning from that sad, remote place where she had spent
the day, I would be a fool to let her down. Making love was
her way of responding to everything - a homecoming, a
symphony, fine weather - even misery, so it seemed.
For half an hour and more she made love with a kind of
expert deliberation - not coldly, indeed; she was never cold
- but as though determined to omit nothing, no voluptuous
trick, no caress, no embrace. Absorbed and in pleasure she
was indeed, but neither joyous nor gay, gazing gravely into
322
my eyes as she provoked me, invited me, urged me on and
held me back like some accomplished courtesan using all
her skill to gratify a king. When at last she could restrain
herself no longer she cried out fiercely, beating her fist on my
back and, as I spent myself in her, gripping me in arms and
legs as though to crush me. Then, releasing me as I fell
away from her, she stood up and cried out with a kind of
defiance, 'I don't care! I don't care! I love Alan!' burst into a
torrent of tears, flung herself down on the bed and in a few
&n
bsp; minutes was fast asleep.
I slept too; and dreamt that we were fugitives in a country
of hills. Every time we tried to descend the vague, shadowy
pursuers were waiting and we would turn back into the
height and solitude, knowing that in the end hunger would
force us down.
We .woke together, or so it seemed. It was quarter past one
and I was ravenously hungry. We went downstairs, fried eggs
and bacon and made tea. I felt calm and cheerful now and
Kathe seemed cheerful too, though with a kind of hesitancy,
as though gaiety were ice and she were testing it to see
whether it would bear her.
Finishing the last of her fried bread she leaned back,
patting her belly and mimicking some gluttonous old burgomaster
at the end of a German dinner.
'Das ist gut, so!'
I laid my hand beside hers.
'That's going to be a lot bigger before long. Won't it be
splendid? Oh, Kathe, you've got everything going for you!
It's silly to be unhappy! Do you know what I believe? I believe
you're subject to that barmy German melancholia Sorrows
of Werther, Schone Miillerin, "Da unten die kuhle
Ruh" - all that stuff. You know, the girl we had in the office
before Mrs Taswell used to have a poker-work notice on the
wall, "Cheer up, it may never happen." I must get you one.'
'Vielleicht. Oh, I feel sleepy again now. Take me back to
bed.'
Next morning she complained of a headache and proved to
have a temperature of just under 100?. I was due to drive
over to Abingdon to see that same dealer from whom she had
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bought the Staffordshire teapot. However, Monday was not
one of Mrs Spencer's days and although normally I might
have been content to leave Kathe to get rid of a temperature
by herself, I thought it better not to do so just now. There
were several business letters I could write by hand without
reference to office papers, and notes of their gist would be
enough for Mrs Taswell's files (such as those were). There
were also three or four telephone calls that could just as
easily be made from Bull Banks as from Northbrook Street.
'Kathe, darling, would you like me to tall the doctor?'
'Ach, nein, poor doctor - what could he do - give me an
aspirin? I've just caught your little trouble from last week,
Alan. It'll leave me as soon as it did you. Give me the wireless
and the Radio Times and I'll be easy, so.'
Indeed, after lunch she seemed so easy that I decided to
go over to Abingdon after all. Having rung up the shop and
learned from Deirdre that all was well ('Quiet's an old cow
all mornin', Mistralan') I set out. It proved a successful trip
- two or three useful purchases - and I returned in good
spirits to find Kathe playing the piano in her dressing-gown.
'You ought not to be up! Go back to bed!'
'You come too, then.'
'No. You're ill. You've got a temperature.'
'Oh, f'ff! It's normal now. I took it.'
'Well, maybe, but getting up too soon's the way to send it
up again.'
'Ich bin im Schloss! Always I'm safe with you, Alan! Who
was that fellow you told me about who went into his castle
and said they couldn't get him - that Shakespeare man?'
'Macbeth. And look what happened to him. You just go
back to bed, now.'
'Make some tea, then, and bring up the tin of biscuits.'
About quarter past eight we were playing picquet when
the door bell rang.
'- And fourteen knaves.'
'Ach, gut! I thought you would have thrown one away.'
'Twenty-two. Oh, blast, who can that be?'
'Tony?'
'No, he never rings the bell. He just comes in.'
324
r
'Mrs Stannard, perhaps, come to see if her little idea's
the right one?'
'Hardly at this time of day. Oh, well, I'd better go and find
out, I suppose.'
I went downstairs and opened the front door. On the step
stood Mrs Taswell.
'Good gracious, Mrs Taswell! Er - how nice to see you!
What brings you here? Nothing wrong, I hope?'
'Well, I hope not, Mr Desland. I've brought the letters
for you to sign - the ones you dictated on Friday. You remember
you said you wanted to sign them to-day. So as you
didn't come in to the shop -'
'Good Lord, you shouldn't have bothered yourself to come
all the way up here just for that! To-morrow would have been
perfectly all right.'
'It's no trouble at all, Mr Desland. As you know, I always
like to do things properly. I've got the letters here.'
'But you could have rung up! I'd have come down to the