Celia’s course was clear: the water. The temptation to enter it was strong, but she set it aside. There would be time for that. She walked to a point about half-way between the Battersea and Albert Bridges and sat down on a bench between a Chelsea pensioner and an Eldorado hokey-pokey man, who had dismounted from his cruel machine and was enjoying a short interlude in paradise. Artists of every kind, writers, underwriters, devils, ghosts, columnists, musicians, lyricists, organists, painters and decorators, sculptors and statuaries, critics and reviewers, major and minor, drunk and sober, laughing and crying, in schools and singly, passed up and down. A flotilla of barges, heaped high with waste paper of many colours, riding at anchor or aground on the mud, waved to her from across the water. A funnel vailed to Battersea Bridge. A tug and barge, coupled abreast, foamed happily out of the Reach. The Eldorado man slept in a heap, the Chelsea pensioner tore at his scarlet tunic, exclaiming: ‘Hell roast this weather, I shill niver fergit it.’ The clock of Chelsea Old Church ground out grudgingly the hour of ten. Celia rose and walked back the way she had come. But instead of keeping straight on into Lot’s Road, as she had hoped, she found herself dragged to the right into Cremorne Road. He was still in the mouth of Stadium Street, in a modified attitude.
‘Hell roast this story,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘I shall never remember it.’
Murphy had crossed his legs, pocketed his hands, dropped the sheet and was staring straight before him. Celia now accosted him in form – ‘Wretched girl!’ said Mr. Kelly – whereupon they walked off happily arm-in-arm, leaving the star chart for June lying in the gutter.
‘This is where we put on the light,’ said Mr. Kelly.
Celia put on the light and turned Mr. Kelly’s pillows.
From that time forward they were indispensable the one to the other.
‘Hey!’ exclaimed Mr. Kelly, ‘don’t skip about like that, will you? You walked away happily arm-in-arm. What happened then?’
Celia loved Murphy, Murphy loved Celia, it was a striking case of love requited. It dated from that first long lingering look exchanged in the mouth of Stadium Street, not from their walking away arm-in-arm nor any subsequent accident. It was the condition of their walking away, etc., as Murphy had shown her many times in Barbara, Baccardi and Baroko, though never in Bramantip. Every moment that Celia spent away from Murphy seemed an eternity devoid of significance, and Murphy for his part expressed the same thought if possible more strongly in the words: ‘What is my life now but Celia?’
On the following Sunday, the moon being at conjunction, he proposed to her in the Battersea Park sub-tropical garden, immediately following the ringing of the bell.
Mr. Kelly groaned.
Celia accepted.
‘Wretched girl,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘most wretched.’
Resting on Campanella’s City of the Sun, Murphy said they must get married by hook or by crook before the moon came into opposition. Now it was September, the sun was back in the Virgin, and their relationship had not yet been regularised.
Mr. Kelly saw no reason why he should contain himself any longer. He started up in the bed, which opened his eyes, as he knew perfectly well it would, and wanted to know the who, what, where, by what means, why, in what way and when. Scratch an old man and find a Quintilian.
‘Who is this Murphy,’ he cried, ‘for whom you have been neglecting your work, as I presume? What is he? Where does he come from? What is his family? What does he do? Has he any money? Has he any prospects? Has he any retrospects? Is he, has he, anything at all?’
Taking the first point first, Celia replied that Murphy was Murphy. Continuing then in an orderly manner she revealed that he belonged to no profession or trade; came from Dublin – ‘My God!’ said Mr. Kelly – knew of one uncle, a Mr. Quigley, a well-to-do ne’er-do-well, resident in Holland, with whom he strove to correspond; did nothing that she could discern; sometimes had the price of a concert; believed that the future held great things in store for him; and never ripped up old stories. He was Murphy. He had Celia.
Mr. Kelly mustered all his hormones.
‘What does he live on?’ he shrieked.
‘Small charitable sums,’ said Celia.
Mr. Kelly fell back. His bolt was shot. The heavens were free to fall.
Celia now came to that part of her relation which she rather despaired of explaining to Mr. Kelly, because she did not properly understand it herself. She knew that if by any means she could insert the problem into that immense cerebrum, the solution would be returned as though by clockwork. Pacing to and fro at a slightly faster rate, racking her brain which was not very large for the best way to say it, she felt she had come to an even more crucial junction in her affairs than that composed by Edith Grove, Cremorne Road and Stadium Street.
‘You are all I have in the world,’ she said.
‘I,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘and possibly Murphy.’
‘There is no one else in the world,’ said Celia, ‘least of all Murphy, that I could speak to of this.’
‘You mollify me,’ said Mr. Kelly.
Celia halted, raised her clasped hands though she knew his eyes were closed and said:
‘Will you please pay attention to this, tell me what it means and what I am to do?’
‘Stop!’ said Mr. Kelly. His attention could not be mobilised like that at a moment’s notice. His attention was dispersed. Part was with its caecum, which was wagging its tail again; part with his extremities, which were dragging anchor; part with his boyhood; and so on. All this would have to be called in. When he felt enough had been scraped together he said:
‘Go!’
Celia spent every penny she earned and Murphy earned no pennies. His honourable independence was based on an understanding with his landlady, in pursuance of which she sent exquisitely cooked accounts to Mr. Quigley and handed over the difference, less a reasonable commission, to Murphy. This superb arrangement enabled him to consume away at pretty well his own gait, but was inadequate for a domestic establishment, no matter how frugal. The position was further complicated by the shadows of a clearance area having fallen, not so much on Murphy’s abode as on Murphy’s landlady. And it was certain that the least appeal to Mr. Quigley would be severely punished. ‘Shall I bite the hand that starves me,’ said Murphy, ‘to have it throttle me?’
Surely between them they could contrive to earn a little. Murphy thought so, with a look of such filthy intelligence as left her, self-aghast, needing him still. Murphy’s respect for the imponderables of personality was profound, he took the miscarriage of his tribute very nicely. If she felt she could not, why then she could not, and that was all. Liberal to a fault, that was Murphy.
‘So far I keep abreast,’ said Mr. Kelly. ‘There is just this tribute—’
‘I have tried so hard to understand that,’ said Celia.
‘But what makes you think a tribute was intended?’ said Mr. Kelly.
‘I tell you he keeps nothing from me,’ said Celia.
‘Did it go something like this?’ said Mr. Kelly. ‘“I pay you the highest tribute that a man can pay a woman, and you throw a scene.”’
‘Hark to the wind,’ said Celia.
‘Damn your eyes,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘did he or didn’t he?’
‘It’s not a bad guess,’ said Celia.
‘Guess my rump,’ said Mr. Kelly. ‘It is the formula.’
‘So long as one of us understands,’ said Celia. In respecting what he called the Archeus, Murphy did no more than as he would be done by. He was consequently aggrieved when Celia suggested that he might try his hand at something more remunerative than apperceiving himself into a glorious grave and checking the starry concave, and would not take the anguish on his face for an answer. ‘Did I press you?’ he said. ‘No. Do you press me? Yes. Is that equitable? My sweet.’
‘Will you conclude now as rapidly as possible,’ said Mr. Kelly. ‘I weary of Murphy.’
He begged her to believe him when he said he could not earn. Had
he not already sunk a small fortune in attempts to do so? He begged her to believe that he was a chronic emeritus. But it was not altogether a question of economy. There were metaphysical considerations, in whose gloom it appeared that the night had come in which no Murphy could work. Was Ixion under any contract to keep his wheel in nice running order? Had any provision been made for Tantalus to eat salt? Not that Murphy had ever heard of.
‘But we cannot go on without any money,’ said Celia.
‘Providence will provide,’ said Murphy.
The imperturbable negligence of Providence to provide goaded them to such transports as West Brompton had not known since the Earl’s Court Exhibition. They said little. Sometimes Murphy would begin to make a point, sometimes he may have even finished making one, it was hard to say. For example, early one morning he said: ‘The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling.’ Was that a point? And again: ‘What shall a man give in exchange for Celia?’ Was that a point?
‘Those were points undoubtedly,’ said Mr. Kelly.
When there was no money left and no bill to be cooked for another week, Celia said that either Murphy got work or she left him and went back to hers. Murphy said work would be the end of them both.
‘Points one and two,’ said Mr. Kelly.
Celia had not been long back on the street when Murphy wrote imploring her to return. She telephoned to say that she would return if he undertook to look for work. Otherwise it was useless. He rang off while she was still speaking. Then he wrote again saying he was starved out and would do as she wished. But as there was no possibility of his finding in himself any reason for work taking one form rather than another, would she kindly procure a corpus of incentives based on the only system outside his own in which he felt the least confidence, that of the heavenly bodies. In Berwick Market there was a swami who cast excellent nativities for sixpence. She knew the year and date of the unhappy event, the time did not matter. The science that had got over Jacob and Esau would not insist on the precise moment of vagitus. He would attend to the matter himself, were it not that he was down to four-pence.
‘And now I ring him up,’ concluded Celia, ‘to tell him I have it, and he tries to choke me off.’
‘It?’ said Mr. Kelly.
‘What he told me to get,’ said Celia.
‘Are you afraid to call it by its name?’ said Mr. Kelly.
‘That is all,’ said Celia. ‘Now tell me what to do, because I have to go.’
Drawing himself up for the third time in the bed Mr. Kelly said:
‘Approach, my child.’
Celia sat down on the edge of the bed, their four hands mingled on the counterpane, they gazed at one another in silence.
‘You are crying, my child,’ said Mr. Kelly. Not a thing escaped him.
‘How can a person love you and go on like that?’ said Celia. ‘Tell me how it is possible.’
‘He is saying the same about you,’ said Mr. Kelly.
‘To his funny old chap,’ said Celia.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. Kelly.
‘No matter,’ said Celia. ‘Hurry up and tell me what to do.’
‘Approach, my child,’ said Mr. Kelly, slipping away a little from his surroundings.
‘Damn it, I am approached,’ said Celia. ‘Do you want me to get in beside you?’
The blue glitter of Mr. Kelly’s eyes in the uttermost depths of their orbits became fixed, then veiled by the classical pythonic glaze. He raised his left hand, where Celia’s tears had not yet dried, and seated it pronate on the crown of his skull – that was the position. In vain. He raised his right hand and laid the forefinger along his nose. He then returned both hands to their point of departure with Celia’s on the counterpane, the glitter came back into his eye and he pronounced:
‘Chuck him.’
Celia made to rise, Mr. Kelly pinioned her wrists.
‘Sever your connexion with this Murphy,’ he said, ‘before it is too late.’
‘Let me go,’ said Celia.
‘Terminate an intercourse that must prove fatal,’ he said, ‘while there is yet time.’
‘Let me go,’ said Celia.
He let her go and she stood up. They gazed at each other in silence. Mr. Kelly missed nothing, his seams began to work.
‘I bow to passion,’ he said.
Celia went to the door.
‘Before you go,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘you might hand me the tail of my kite. Some tassels have come adrift.’
Celia went to the cupboard where he kept his kite, took out the tail and loose tassels and brought them over to the bed.
‘As you say,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘hark to the wind. I shall fly her out of sight to-morrow.’
He fumbled vaguely at the coils of tail. Already he was in position, straining his eyes for the speck that was he, digging in his heels against the immense pull skyward. Celia kissed him and left him.
‘God willing,’ said Mr. Kelly, ‘right out of sight.’
Now I have no one, thought Celia, except possibly Murphy.
3
THE moon, by a striking coincidence full and at perigee, was 29,000 miles nearer the earth than it had been for four years. Exceptional tides were expected. The Port of London Authority was calm.
It was after ten when Celia reached the mew. There was no light in his window, but that did not trouble her, who knew how addicted he was to the dark. She had raised her hand to knock the knock that he knew, when the door flew open and a man smelling strongly of drink rattled past her down the steps. There was only one way out of the mew, and this he took after a brief hesitation. He spurned the ground behind him in a spring-heeled manner, as though he longed to run but did not dare. She entered the house, her mind still tingling with the clash of his leaden face and scarlet muffler, and switched on the light in the passage. In vain, the bulb had been taken away. She started to climb the stairs in the dark. On the landing she paused to give herself a last chance, Murphy and herself a last chance.
She had not seen him since the day he stigmatised work as the end of them both, and now she came creeping upon him in the dark to execute a fake jossy’s sixpenny writ to success and prosperity. He would be thinking of her as a Fury coming to carry him off, or even as a tipstaff with warrant to distrain. Yet it was not she, but Love, that was the bailiff. She was but the bumbailiff. This discrimination gave her such comfort that she sat down on the stairhead, in the pitch darkness excluding the usual auspices. How different it had been on the riverside, when the barges had waved, the funnel bowed, the tug and barge sung, yes to her. Or had they meant no? The distinction was so nice. What difference, for example, would it make now, whether she went on up the stairs to Murphy or back down them into the mew? The difference between her way of destroying them both, according to him, and his way, according to her. The gentle passion.
No sound came from Murphy’s room, but that did not trouble her, who knew how addicted he was to remaining still for long periods.
She fumbled in her bag for a coin. If her thumb felt the head she would go up; if her devil’s finger, down. Her devil’s finger felt the head and she rose to depart. An appalling sound issued from Murphy’s room, a flurry of such despairing quality that she dropped the bag, followed after a short silence by a suspiration more lamentable than any groan. For a moment she did not move, the power to do so having deserted her. No sooner did this return than she snatched up the bag and flew to the rescue, as she supposed. Thus the omen of the coin was overruled.
Murphy was as last heard of, with this difference however, that the rocking-chair was now on top. Thus inverted his only direct contact with the floor was that made by his face, which was ground against it. His attitude roughly speaking was that of a very inexperienced diver about to enter the water, except that his arms were not extended to break the concussion, but fastened behind him. Only the most local movements were possible, a licking of the lips, a turning of the other cheek to the dust, and so on. Blood gushed from his nose.
Losing no time in idle speculation Celia undid the scarves and prised the chair off him with all possible speed. Part by part he subsided, as the bonds that held him fell away, until he lay fully prostrate in the crucified position, heaving. A huge pink nævus on the pinnacle of the right buttock held her spellbound. She could not understand how she had never noticed it before.
‘Help,’ said Murphy.
Startled from her reverie she set to and rendered him every form of assistance known to an old Girl Guide. When she could think of nothing more she dragged him out of the corner, shovelled the rocking-chair under him, emptied him on to the bed, laid him out decently, covered him with a sheet and sat down beside him. The next move was his.
‘Who are you?’ said Murphy.
Celia mentioned her name. Murphy, unable to believe his ears, opened his eyes. The beloved features emerging from chaos were the face against the big blooming buzzing confusion of which Neary had spoken so highly. He closed his eyes and opened his arms. She sank down athwart his breast, their heads were side by side on the pillow but facing opposite ways, his fingers strayed through her yellow hair. It was the short circuit so earnestly desired by Neary, the glare of pursuit and flight extinguished.
In the morning he described in simple language how he came to be in that extraordinary position. Having gone to sleep, though sleep was hardly the word, in the chair, the next thing was he was having a heart attack. When this happened when he was normally in bed, nine times out of ten his struggles to subdue it landed him on the floor. It was therefore not surprising, given his trussed condition, that on this occasion they had caused the entire machine to turn turtle.