The Girl in a Swing

and gloves. I rummaged hastily, pulled out both the bags

  and opened them, but could not see the Veganin. Each,

  however, had a side-pocket, and one of these was full of

  small articles of one sort and another. I took the bag across

  to the bed and emptied the pocket out on the eiderdown - a

  comb, a nail-file, a powder-compact, two or three Danish

  coins, a phial of scent. Still not finding the Veganin, I shook

  the bag and ran my fingers round the inside of the pocket.

  342

  They dislodged a crumpled piece of paper which fluttered

  out and fell on the bed. It was a receipted bill from one of

  the principal department stores in Copenhagen, dated the

  previous 22nd of December and reading, in Danish, '1 Toy

  Tortoise (Green) - 78 Kroner'.

  I crumpled it in the grate, struck a match and set light to

  it.

  'And this, too,' I said aloud, watching it burn, 'I have always

  known.'

  The Veganin tube was in the pocket of the other bag, and

  I took it back with me to the car.

  25

  I DROVE south, towards Andover, which we reached at

  twenty past six. Kathe, beside me, scarcely spoke, and

  showed no emotion - neither relief nor shock - from the

  suffering of the night, sitting for the most part with closed

  eyes, only her upright head and occasional movements showing

  that she was not asleep. I made no attempt to talk. Apart

  from my stupor of sleeplessness and fatigue I knew that she,

  like myself, was teyond exchanging words. What could they

  communicate; and what was there to say?

  Numbed though I felt, nevertheless fear, still hanging

  over me like a cat's paw above a live mouse, continually

  descended to pummel and prick my cringing mind. I felt

  weary beyond all further reaction: yet despite this weariness

  - as it were, in a second layer of feeling hidden within the

  first - I was dully but most miserably oppressed by hopelessness

  and dread. We appeared free, Kathe and I, and therefore,

  like the mouse, instinctively we must run. Perhaps just

  conceivably - through some accident, some circumstance

  beyond our understanding - we might escape. And

  like the mouse, I knew with despair that we would not. Do

  mice know what the cat is? In what way do they apprehend

  it? They cannot be aware, in the way that we are, of a finite

  creature. Yet they feel, more truly than we, what it means,

  343

  and after a little time in its power will sometimes die unwounded

  and uninjured. So it was with me. Spent and without

  understanding, I yet knew that disaster and ruin were

  watching as we travelled.

  From my other knowledge - the bill in the handbag - I

  hid beneath my exhaustion; just as, in the night, I had tried

  to keep my head under the blankets. Though I could not but

  know what the bill had told more plainly than the weeping,

  yet to myself I pretended otherwise. Anyway, it was no

  longer of importance what I knew. The cat would take care

  of everything. If the knowledge had made me think of leaving

  Kathe it might have mattered, but that course did not

  come to mind. My role was appointed. Yet this, no doubt, was

  why I did not drive towards Bristol, or to Tony or some other

  source of help. There could be no help. We were alone, enclosed

  together in the day as we had been in the night, and

  there was nothing for me to do but attend her and wait.

  We had not spoken of our destination. Without asking, I

  knew that Kathe, though she had no knowledge of the

  country and could have formed no plan, would tell me this

  when she was ready. Meanwhile we were no longer, for the

  time being, in torment, and it made no particular difference

  where we went. We were like fish in a landlocked pool.

  There was hardly a soul about as we came into Andover,

  but I slowed down to ten or fifteen miles an hour so that

  Kathe might look about her and tell me, if she wished,

  whether to stop or where to go next.

  'Not here,' she said, turning towards me and showing

  with a smile that she understood what I was asking. 'Not

  here, Alan.'

  I took the Salisbury road and drove out past Anna Valley

  and Abbots Hill. At a little after quarter to seven we came in

  sight of the cathedral spire.

  'Shall I drive into the town?' I asked her, and she replied,

  'Ja, bitte. Slowly again.'

  A moment afterwards a great cock pheasant, haughty and

  heedless as a peacock on a lawn, strutted across the road

  from one bank to the other, not even turning its gaudy

  head as I braked to avoid it.

  344

  'He thinks he can't be hurt, doesn't he?' she said; and

  laughed. For answer I leaned over and lightly kissed her

  cheek before driving on.

  'Not here,' she said in Salisbury, barely glancing at the

  empty pavements and blank shop-fronts. 'Not here.'

  So I drove out past Harnham, towards Cranborne Chase

  and Blandford Forum. The road was becoming fuller, now,

  with early traffic, and there were people standing at 'bus

  stops and coming out of newsagents' with papers in their

  hands.

  'Not here,' she said at Blandford. 'Not here, Alan. Poor,

  tired Alan! Drive on a little way yet.' Through my sleeplessness

  and anxiety, the fancy came to me that her voice was

  like a cascade among ferns.

  'Your voice is like ferns,' I said. 'You're so beautiful - no

  one could -'

  'I've always loved driving with you, Alan, she answered.

  'Tell me, are we anywhere near the White Horse?'

  'No, we're a long way from the White Horse here.'

  'How stupid of me.'

  'Did you want to go to the White Horse?'

  'No. No, I had my wish. I don't think you can have another.'

  At eight o'clock the sky was still thickly overcast and very

  dark. The roadside ash trees hung motionless and there was

  no least glimpse of the sun. Half an hour later we reached

  the outskirts of Dorchester and crossed the Frome.

  'Alan,' she said; and then, as I, supposing that she would

  go on to speak, made no reply, 'Alan?'

  'Yes, darling?'

  'Are we far from the sea?'

  'Less than ten miles, I should think, though I don't know

  these parts very well. Do you want to go to the sea?'

  'M'm.' She paused as though deliberating; then said,

  'Yes. That would be lovely - the sea.'

  We reached the shore by by-roads a little after nine. No

  matter where it was - a lonely place along the great sweep

  of coast between Sidmouth and Portland Bill. It was as still

  a sea as I have ever seen - all grey under the grey sky,

  345

  smooth for miles and smooth far out, the waves scarcely

  breaking as they lapped the sand. We left the car on the

  grass verge beside the road and walked to the beach through

  sandy hillocks, above hollows overgrown with stinging nettles,

  ragwort and brambles. We saw no one and I felt no surprise,

  for the day promised ill as clearly as pos
sible and

  rain could not be long.

  We stood together at the top of the beach, looking down

  across the empty sands.

  'How far have we come?' she asked. 'You're very tired,

  aren't you?'

  'I suppose about a hundred miles. No more tired than you,

  my darling. I'll do whatever you want: you've only to say.'

  'Let's go down to the water.'

  Now the trance descended upon me once more - the

  sense of unreality, the sea become a vast, silent field, the

  clouds a dark canopy pressed down over the sand, the quiet

  unbroken even by gulls, so it seemed; the sun lost and the

  wind lost and all volition lost as I followed her, my Kathe,

  full of the same fear that I had felt that evening by the swing.

  Now, as then, I knew only that there was something I was

  required to do, but my mind was dimmed and in some way

  drawn apart from me, languishing like a plant uprooted from

  the ground.

  'Ye shall hear and shall not understand,' I thought. 'Seeing

  ye shall see, and shall not perceive. 0 God, have mercy!'

  On the verge of the sea Kathe stopped and held out her

  arms to me.

  'Alan,' she said, looking up into my face as we embraced I

  saw a tiny pulse throbbing under her left eye, each beat

  minutely contorting the lower eyelid - 'you know, don't

  you?'

  'Yes,' I answered.

  'And you love me, don't you? You can't help it?'

  In dreams one has power to tell only the truth, and they

  themselves tell you not what you ought to do, but what you

  did not know you felt. Sickened, now, and terrified by my

  knowledge, I knew also that in face of the delight of Kathe

  and her beauty, the rejection of evil - callous, unnatural

  346

  evil - was of less weight in my inmost heart. She was

  asking me not whether I chose, but whether I had the power

  to renounce her. I had not.

  For answer I began to fondle and caress her, undressing

  her where she stood, kissing her lips, her shoulders, her

  breasts and the softness of her arms. As I gazed back at her

  she saw the reply which I had not uttered. Half-naked, she

  stood back from me a pace or two, looking into my eyes

  with a kind of mingled elation and despair beyond me to

  describe.

  'Wait,' she said. 'Wait, then.'

  With a kind of ceremonious deliberation, she herself took

  off her remaining clothes, letting them fall one by one upon

  the sand. Then, naked, she slid off her rings - the great pearl

  cluster, and her wedding ring after it - and dropped them

  into my pocket. She flung her arms round rriy neck and kissed

  me again and again.

  The tide must have been flowing, I suppose, for the sand

  along the waterline was powdery, soft and dry. We sank

  down upon it where we were, I half-clothed and she naked.

  Sobbing with desire and relief, I mounted her, hearing the

  gentle, rhythmic lapping of the sea at my very ear.

  Through love-making I had known her express every

  emotion and mood, her every response to the world. This

  was an elegy. In obscured light, under louring, thick cloud,

  alone in a place which should have been sunny and frequented,

  she received me into herself like the sea receiving a

  setting sun. Her body, moving beneath me, seemed striving

  ever deeper into the myriad, rough grains of sand, fit covering

  for shipwreck and tide-tumbled bones. Our very pleasure,

  exquisite, intense as crimson glowing in the west, moved

  inevitably on to the point where it must blaze out and

  vanish like last light. I clasped her to me like a man drowning,

  crying, '0 my love, my love!' until the ecstasy engulfed

  me and swirled me down.

  The level, still sea was moving, rippling unnaturally. Something

  was disturbing it, something was approaching the

  surface, though with difficulty, as it seemed; something

  close at hand, not twenty feet from where we were lying. A

  347

  higher wave, softly turbulent, flowed forward and round us,

  soaking my clothes and very cold upon my naked loins. The

  shock brought me to myself and I knew once more that I

  was lying on the beach, holding Kathe in my arms. She had

  turned her head and was staring, wide-eyed and unbreathing,

  at the water. Following her gaze, I saw the surface break and

  saw what came out of the sea.

  What came out of the sea, groping blindly with arms and

  stumbling on legs to which grey, sodden flesh still clung, had

  once been a little girl.

  I was running, staggering, falling down, climbing from the

  beach, pulling and wrenching at the clothes that tripped and

  hindered me. My mouth and eyes were full of sand. I must

  have lost my senses and gone on running nevertheless. I

  cannot tell what I did. Suddenly I came to a steep edge and

  pitched headlong. I felt fearful laceration and stinging pain

  across my face and hands, flowing blood and then nothing

  more.

  When I came to myself I was lying among nettles and thick

  brambles, bleeding from innumerable scratches on my face,

  limbs and body. I crept deeper still into the thicket, clutching

  at the nettles with my bare hands and sobbing with a terror

  as much like normal fear as a leopard is like a cat. The edge

  of a rusty tin cut my wrist almost to the bone and the blood

  spurted out.

  Sand and dirt, mingled with the blood, covered my torn

  clothes from head to foot. I began to cry, calling for my

  mother, imploring her to come. I was shuddering with cold

  and in horrible pain, chiefly in my hands and stung, swollen

  face. Little by little, like a man who has fainted under torture

  and wakes to find himself still in the hands of the

  torturers, I remembered where I was and what I believed I

  had seen. Crawling out, at last, from among the brambles,

  I stood up in the open, in heavy rain.

  As I did so I became aware of someone walking purposefully

  towards me from a little distance off. If I could have

  run away I would have done so, but it was beyond me to

  348

  take a step. I covered my face with my hands and so remained

  until I felt my arm firmly grasped. It was a policeman

  - burly and deliberate as he turned me to face him. I fell

  forward and clung to him, crying, 'Oh, take me away! Take

  me away from here! Don't let it - don't let it-'

  'Easy, now, sir; easy, please,' said the policeman. 'Just try

  to take it easy. I'll give you a hand, now. What's your name,

  sir, please?'

  'Desland - Alan Desland.'

  'Is that your car, sir, up by the road?'

  'Yes.'

  'And have you seen anything of a young lady, sir, on the

  beach or somewhere thereabouts, within the last hour or

  so?'

  'Oh, where is she, officer? I must go to her!'

  'Easy now, sir, I said. She's down at the hospital, that's

  where she is. Can you tell me what happened? Some sort of

  trouble, was there?'

  He was supporting an
d guiding me as I hobbled beside

  him towards the road. Two other policemen were standing

  beside a police car parked near my own. There was no one

  else in sight. They said nothing as we came up to them, but

  one got into the car and started it, while another unwrapped

  some sort of dressing and put it on my wrist.

  I said, 'Please take me to my wife. She needs me.'

  'Your wife?' replied one of the policemen. I said nothing

  and after a few moments he added coldly, 'She's ill.'

  'I'm sure she is,' I answered. 'I must see her at once,

  please. Stay with me if you want to - do whatever you like only

  take me to the hospital.'

  'That's where you're going,' said the policeman brusquely,

  'for a start, anyway. You need some treatment yourself, sir.

  You're in a pretty bad way, you know.'

  I can't remember all that followed. I was helped out of the

  car and into the casualty ward. Two young nurses, saying

  little and plainly afraid of me, helped me off with my ruined

  clothes and brought pyjamas and a dressing-gown. There were

  bowls of warm water, swabs of cotton-wool and stinging

  antiseptic. They bandaged my wrist and someone gave me an

  349

  injection. I kept saying, 'I must see my wife. Please take me

  to my wife,' and one of the nurses replied, 'Just relax now.

  Just relax and let us finish.' I had difficulty in controlling

  myself from imploring them, with tears, to do as I asked.

  We were in some sort of little, private room. A doctor

  came in; a young, big man, white-coated, a stethoscope

  round his neck. He began harshly, 'Well, now, it seems I've

  got to have a look at you -' but I cut him short, standing up

  and saying, 'Please take me to my wife. It's for her sake I'm

  asking you. At least tell me how she is.'

  'The woman you were with? She's very ill,' he replied, as

  shortly and coldly as the policeman. 'I dare say you can tell

  me why, can you?'

  Til tell you anything you like,' I said, 'if only you'll let me

  see her.' Confused, and struggling for more persuasive words,

  I added stupidly, 'I have to - to attend her.'

  'Well, you can't now,' he answered, glancing at one of the

  nurses with a look expressive of impatience and contempt.

  'She's been sedated and she's asleep. I should think you've

  done about enough for the time being. Better keep quiet

  while I have a look at you. Come on!'

  I was too weak and upset to return his anger. I said, 'Can

  you - I beg you - tell me what's the matter with her?'

  He stared at me coldly for a few moments and then replied,

  'She was found by a motorist, wandering naked beside

  the road and out of her mind. He brought her here and.-we

  told the police, who went to search the area. You're not her

  husband, are you? You raped her.'

  'I am her husband!' I shouted at him. As I swayed on my

  feet, he supported me back into the chair and stood over

  me.

  'If you're her husband, why did you have sexual intercourse

  with her out there, in a public place, and then leave

  her? And if she's your wife, where are her rings?'

  There was a policeman sitting in one corner of the room.

  He said, 'Excuse me, doctor, but perhaps it might be better

  to leave questions like that for us. The gentleman hasn't been

  cautioned yet.'

  350

  The young doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned

  away. I said, 'I assure you I am her husband and that I did

  not rape or ill-use her. In Christian mercy, please let me see

  her.'

  He paused a moment and then answered, 'Oh, well - you

  can't do any more harm here. You'd better come too, I suppose,'

  he said to the policeman; and led the way out into the

  hospital-smelling corridor.

  Kathe was in a room by herself, with a nurse beside the

  bed. One arm was lying on the blanket, but her face was

  partly covered by the sheet and I could not see it clearly.

  She seemed asleep, though her breathing was swift and

  irregular. I was about to go across to the bedside, but the

  doctor pointed to two chairs by the door, saying, 'Sit there.

  I'll come back in five minutes,' and went out of the room.

  'I ought to tell you, sir,' whispered the policeman, seating

  himself beside me, 'that if the lady comes round, I may have

  to exercise my discretion to make a note of anything that's

  said.'

  I nodded and we sat in silence. The nurse kept glancing at

  me sidelong, obviously nervous and glad of the presence of

  the policeman. Ten minutes passed, but the young doctor did

  not return and at length she whispered, 'I think you'll have