The flaming colours had gone with the sun, the little ripples still formed and bubbled, but they were brown now, dull, and shadowed by the archways of the bridge.
The sight of the barge had taken me away from myself, and because she had left me I fell back again into my first despondency, seeing nothing but my own black mood of bitterness, caring for nothing but that the night should come quickly and allow me to slip away unseen. I waited then, for time was something with which I had no more concern, except for the furthering of my purpose, and as I leant against the stanchion of the bridge I closed my eyes so that I need not look upon the faces of the men and women who passed me by.
In this way I could cling to some sort of security, and my plans would not be hindered by a momentary weakness thrusting itself into my view, a weakness coming to me from the strength and solidity of people.
My ears would not be deafened, though, and in spite of myself I listened to the safe and steady rumble of traffic over the bridge, the hard, grating wheels of lorries, the painful grind of a tram homeward bound, the jolt of a bus, the smooth wheels of cars, and the silly rattle of a stray taxi. I pretended that these things were meaningless in themselves, and could not drag me away from the river to be part of them, but even as I argued thus I heard the voices of women as they trudged along the pavement, brushing against me as they went, the shoulder of one just touching the back of my coat. And these women, whom I had never seen, seemed by this simple action to enter my life, becoming definite personalities of reality.
Coward-like, I would have turned to them and stretched out my hands, saying as I did so: ‘Perhaps you would stand here a little longer so that I may listen to your voices; nothing more than this.’ Maybe they would have understood. Stupidly, with the dumb knowledge that such a moment was impossible, I longed for them to linger a while, and consider the matter, and then accepting me as one of themselves suggest that I return with them. Gravely, kindly, they would watch my face, and with a quick, shy gesture, as though ashamed of their charity, they would say to me: ‘You can come back with us, you know, it isn’t much of a place. . . .’
I would walk then with them, somewhat apart, conscious of their superiority, and we would arrive at some drab tenement building, where iron-railed balconies stretched from window to window. There would be a canary swinging in a high cage, and a faded odd-patterned screen. These women would busy themselves, familiar with their surroundings, and the drip of a tap or the moving of cups and saucers would seem blessed tokens of friendship to me, humble in a quiet corner, blinking my eyes because of the sudden flare of a gas-jet. I would enter the moods of these people, share their troubles, love their friends, act in some way as a faithful servant if only they should not cast me away from them, leaving me to wander back to the bridge once more.
I opened my eyes, and the women had passed from me along the pavement; I could scarcely distinguish their backs amongst the crowd pushing each other where the tram stopped.
They were away and out of my remnant of existence, like the low hull of the barge and the man with his arm flung over the tiller.
I took a folded newspaper from my pocket, smoothing the creases carefully and read with interest some advertisement for furs.
The print mocked me, knowing that the words they spelt could have no meaning to me, for soon I would be a bent, contorted thing of ugliness, sucked and drawn by the swirling eddies of the Pool, and the paper and its advertisement floating placidly to some unknown destination upon the surface of the water.
It seemed strange that things could still be done to me after I was dead, that my body would perhaps be found and handled by people I should never know, that really a little life would go on about me which I should never feel.
The tiresome business of burial, and decay. These sordid actualities of death would be spared me at least.
For me, the present agony of departure, the silent terror of leaving a place known to me if hated, the well-nigh impossible task of conquering the fear that possessed me. Not the fear of that hasty look round, the sudden plunge headlong and the giddy shock of hard, cold water, the river itself entering my lungs, rising in my throat, tossing me upon my back with my arms outflung - I could hear the sob strangled in my chest and the blood leave me - but fear of the certain knowledge that there was no returning, no possible means of escape, and no other thing beyond.
It would not matter to the world that I was gone, odd doubtful thought, entering my mind at such a moment. I felt the flesh that was mine and the body that belonged to me; queer to think it was in my power to destroy them so swiftly.
During these last moments I stood apart then from the world I had not left. No longer of it, and yet not broken away.
That man on the top of a bus, brushing his hair away from his face, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, he belonged - he would know many days and many nights. That lorry-driver, his face white with cement from a load of bricks, shouting to his companion; and a hurrying girl, parcels in her hands, glancing to right and left. One after another they flashed before me, imprinting themselves for ever on my mind, living, breathing figures I had no right to touch. I envied them their food, their sleep, their snatches of conversation, the smell even of their clothes, dusty after a long day. I thought of places I should never see, and women I should never love. A white sea breaking upon a beach, the slow rustle of a shivering tree, the hot scent of grass. A crowded café, and the laughter of some man, a car passing over cobbled stones. A dark close room and a girl still against the shadowed pillow, her hands across my back.
I remembered as a child standing in a field where a stream crossed my path, and a yellow iris grew next a background of green rushes. The stream sang as it tumbled over the flat stones. And as a child I thought how strange it was that such things should continue after I had left them, as though when turning a corner with the stream hidden from view, a mist must fall about them, shrouding them carefully, until I should pass again.
It was like this now, with the traffic and the moving people. Impossible that they should live while I was no more a part of existence.
Once more I looked down upon the swirling water beneath the bridge. I threw away my paper and watched it twirl slowly, caught in a sudden eddy, and then, limp and tragic, float from me, borne by the current. A crinkled edge stared up at me, as yet unsodden, like a faint protest.
I resolved that I would not wait any more. The dust and the noise of humanity, the nearness of men and women, were urging some claim upon me that was robbing me of my strength and will.
They were united in a conspiracy to keep me from the peace I had promised myself.
It was not thus I had imagined it would be.
I wanted it to be made easier for me. In my preparations for this moment I had been overcome by a great weariness, my eyes had seen nothing but the wide placid sheet of water ready to receive me, my ears had heard nothing but the soft, steady ripple of the wash against the archway of the bridge.
There was no throb of traffic then, no hum of city, no smell of dust, and body, and life, no shouts of men, nor the clear whistle of a boy with his hands in his pockets.
I wanted to be tired, I wanted to be old, I wanted to lose myself and not be reminded of things I had never done.
I looked up at the sky and saw a great dark-edged cloud hover over the distant spire of St Paul’s. Where the west had been golden was a shadowed blanket, a grim reflection of the murky buildings by the water’s edge. Soon the million lights that belonged to London would cast a halo of light into the sky, and one faint star would flicker against the purple.
There seemed no reason for staying any longer. I would not even be dramatic and make a gesture of farewell. There should be no sentimentality where I was concerned. It was not worth the trouble of tears, not my life, anyway. I would make a ripple upon the water for a moment, not much more than a stone thrown by a child from a bank. Nothing mattered very much. I wondered why my heart felt so heavy and afraid, why the sweat cl
ung to my hands and could not be wiped away.
I swung my legs over, holding on to the bridge with desperate fingers. An odd snatch of breeze blew across my hair. I supposed that this was the very last thing of the world to come to me.
I breathed deeply, and I felt as though the waiting water rose up in front of me and would not let me go.
This was my final impression of horror, when fear and fascination took hold upon me, and I knew that I should have no other moment but this before the river itself closed in upon me. My fingers slackened, and I lowered myself for the fall.
It was then that someone laid his hands upon my shoulder, and turning to clutch him instinctively as a means of safety, I saw Jake for the first time, his head thrown back, a smile on his lips.
2
‘You don’t want to do that,’ he said; ‘it doesn’t do any good really, you know. Because nobody has ever proved that there isn’t something beyond. The chances are you might find yourself up against something terrific, something too big for you, and you wouldn’t know how to get out of it. Besides - wait until you’re sixty-five if you must finish that way.’
I was ready to break down like a boy and cry. I kept my hand on his arm as though it afforded me some measure of protection. Yet somewhere inside me there was a feeling of revolt, a stupid sense of frustration. This fellow had not any right to stop me from making a fool of myself. And, anyway, I did not care a damn for his opinion. Mechanically I heard myself speaking in a small tired voice I scarcely recognized as my own.
‘You don’t understand,’ I kept saying, ‘you don’t understand - I’m not going to explain to you or to anybody. This is my affair, you don’t understand.’
He swung himself up on the bridge beside me. He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.
I took one, and this very action of turning it in my fingers and lighting it, in the familiar drawing-in of my breath, gave me such a sense of life new-found with the blessed relief that I had so far escaped the horror of death, that I smiled and was no longer fearful or ashamed to meet his eyes.
He smiled too, and then stayed silent for some minutes, allowing me time to recover my mental balance, while his shoulder just touched my shoulder, and his knee just touched my knee, so that I was aware of the immense security of his presence.
He must have been following some train of thought in his mind, for when he spoke again it was like the continuation of things unsaid.
‘There’s always been a whole lot talked about responsibilities,’ he went on, ‘and citizenship, and duty, which is a funny word. None of these matters to you or to me, I guess. Maybe we’re built on a lower level. We’re not belonging to the crowd of real people. They exist apart, in their true, even way of living. But there’s something in me and in you that can’t be cheated for all that, it’s like a spark of light that burns in spite of ourselves, we can’t throw it away, we can’t destroy the only chance we’ve got to live for our own purpose.We wouldn’t have been born otherwise. ’
He broke off abruptly and looked at me sideways, not to watch the effect of his words, but to see how I was taking my new lease of life.
‘What were you thinking about?’ he asked. I saw that he meant by this what was I thinking before I tried to throw myself down from the bridge.
‘I don’t know,’ I said; ‘pictures came into my mind that I couldn’t stop. The smell of grass in early summer, a gull dipping its wing into the sea, a ploughman on a hill resting, his hand on his horse’s back, and the touch of earth. No, now I come to remember, these faded before things I had never known. Impossible dusty cities and men swearing and fighting; then I getting terribly drunk, getting terribly tired sleeping with women who laughed against my shoulder, not caring about me at all. Then eating and riding, and a long rest and a dream.’
Somehow we found ourselves smiling at the pictures my imagination had so swiftly conjured.
‘That’s the sort of mood you’ve got to cling to,’ he said, ‘don’t get away from it. I want you to feel like that.’
Once more I was a boy again, shy, sullen, resentful of the attitude he had adopted. I didn’t know him. It wasn’t his business.
I leant forward on the bridge, biting my nails.
‘I don’t see,’ I said, ‘what all this has got to do with you. You might as well have left me to clear out. I’m no use, I don’t want to live.’
He did not bother about me, he made no attempt to ask questions, and I felt like some silly girl snubbed by a man older than herself, failing to win her impression, and sitting back confused and immature.
‘Oh! hell,’ I said, and to my shame and misery I heard my voice break off in the middle, and I felt the tears come in my eyes.
I was not even a boy, but a little sniffing child wiping his nose against the shoulder of his companion.
‘I’ve been such a fool,’ I said, ‘such a bloody fool.’
Then he laid his hand on my arm, and I knew he was not looking at my face, but that he meant to show he was with me and that my boy’s tears could not spoil anything.
‘We’ll pull along together,’ he said, and that was all.
I knew then that I did not have to worry about things again, that I could lean upon him, weak though it might seem, and that he would not leave me to the horror of being alone. I began to notice his face, his curious grey eyes and the scar that ran the length of his left cheek. His hair was black, and he wore no hat. His clothes were shabby too, as though he did not care. I did not mind who he was or where he came from, all I knew was that there was something of splendour about him that had lifted me away from myself, making the coward in me sorry and lamentable beside his grandeur. He must have been some six or seven years older than me, but I felt there was no necessity to ask these sorts of questions.
We accepted each other and that was all.
‘My name’s Jake,’ he said, throwing away his cigarette, ‘what do you call yourself ?’
I hesitated like a poor fool, and then stumbled over my words, realizing that my father’s name could not matter to such as he, fame would be one of those things that would leave him untouched, save for a smile and a shrug of his shoulder.
‘Oh! call me Dick,’ I said, ‘that’s good enough for me,’ but even as I muttered this stupidly I hated to feel he had been aware of my hesitation. It was as though some remnant of family pride still clung about me, reminding me that the shackles of relationship could never be shaken off.
At that moment I loathed the memory of my home more than ever; I could not bear that instinctively it should step between me and my freedom.
He asked me suddenly how old I was, and I told him I was twenty-one.
‘You mustn’t throw it away,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said.
I don’t think I really knew what he meant.
‘Life,’ he said, ‘isn’t just whining about things. There’s something tremendous in it. We don’t want to go messing up our chances. There’s so much to know, so much to do. No reason for us to crumple.’
I wondered why he included himself in my inferiority, and I thought that this was his way of showing sympathy. He was pulling himself down to my level. I didn’t want him to do that, it was a humiliation to both of us, but especially to him. I knew that however desperate his life might have been, however lonely and bitter and distressed, he would not have done what I had tried to do.
He would have been sufficient to himself and never lonely.
‘Oh! you,’ I said, ‘you’re different -’
I felt hot and ashamed, but he did not notice this, unless he kept his thoughts to himself.
The darkness had come while we had been talking, and there were no wide streaks left in the sky and no dark patches.
There was a star above the black smudge of St Paul’s.
I was grateful to the darkness and grateful to the vast sound of London in the distance. I loved the warm air and the spent dust, the lights of the world that still accepted me, the listless
scent of a summer evening, the movement of people, and the blessed certitude of the small star. And above all the voice and nearness of my companion.
The river beneath the bridge was remote now and beyond me, the very water running so swift and silently held no suggestion of horror. It had even lost its power of fascination. I was superior on my firm bridge and it could not reach me. I would not be afraid of it again.
Perhaps in a way I was dazzled at the thrill of escape, I was oddly excited at the possibility of adventure, I wanted to show off. I swung my legs carelessly over the parapet, whistling to myself, knowing I should not fall.
Jake laughed, and steadied my arm as though I were a child.
‘You’re safe now, aren’t you?’ he said.
I felt small and ridiculous, and was not sure how much of a fool he thought me. I wished I was different, I wished I were stronger than he.
It would be good to win his approval over anything.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked, and I wondered whether he realized how I hung upon his words. He did not answer me directly, his face was in shadow and I could not learn the expression in his eyes. Once more he continued in a channel of his own thoughts.
‘Being young,’ he said, ‘is something you won’t understand until it’s gone from you, and then it will come in a flash, leaving you a little wiser than before.You won’t be lonely, you won’t be unhappy, possibly there will be a great peace and security. You’ll go on, you see, as others have gone on, just that and no more. You’ll love and live, and the rest of it. But because of stupidity, or carelessness, or a belief in the lasting glamour of things, you’ll throw away what you wanted to throw away tonight. I guess you won’t notice any difference.You won’t know what you’re losing, and you won’t care.’
He laughed softly, and laying his hand on my shoulder I knew that he understood me better than I did myself. And there was a shadow across his eyes which made me feel as if he were sorry about something.