Memento Mori

by Muriel Spark

  “Stop feeling guilty about Godfrey,” Guy said. He had expected a livelier meeting with Charmian. He had never known Charmian to complain so much. He wished he had not enquired after Godfrey in the first place. Her words depressed him. They were like spilt sugar; however much you swept it up some grains would keep grinding under your feet.

  “About your novels,” he said. “The plots are so well-laid. For instance in The Seventh Child, although of course one feels that Edna will never marry Gridsworthy, you have this tension between Anthony Garland and Colonel Yeoville, and until of course their relationships to Gabrielle are revealed, there is every likelihood that Edna will marry one or the other. And yet, of course, all along one is aware of a kind of secret life within Edna, especially at that moment when she is alone in the garden at Neuflette, and then comes unexpectedly upon Karl and Gabrielle. And then one feels sure she will marry Gridsworthy after all, merely for his kindness. And really, right up to the last page one does not know Karl’s true feelings. Or rather, one knows them—but does he know them? I must admit, although I remembered the story well, I felt the same enormous sense of relief, when I read it again the other day, that Edna did not throw herself over the cliff. The suspense, the plot alone, quite apart from the prose, are superb.”

  “And yet,” said Charmian, smiling up at the sky through the window, “when I was halfway through writing a novel I always got into a muddle and didn’t know where it was leading me.”

  Guy thought: She is going to say—dear Charmian—she is going to say, “The characters seemed to take on a life of their own.”

  “The characters,” said Charmian, “seemed to take control of my pen after a while. But at first I always got into a tangle. I used to say to myself,

  ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave

  When first we practise to deceive!’

  Because,” she said, “the art of fiction is very like the practise of deception.”

  “And in life,” he said, “is the practise of deception in life an art too?”

  “In life,” she said, “everything is different. Everything is in the Providence of God. When I think of my own life…Godfrey…”

  Guy wished he had not introduced the question of life, but had continued discussing her novels. Charmian was upset about Godfrey, that was plain.

  “Godfrey has not been to visit me yet. He is to come next week. If he is able. But he is failing. You see, Guy, he is his own worst enemy. He…”

  How banal and boring, Guy thought, do the most interesting people become when they are touched by a little bit of guilt.

  He left at five. Charmian watched him from the window being helped into his car. She was vexed with herself for going on so much about Godfrey. Guy had never been interested in her domestic affairs. He was such an amusing companion. The room, with its chintzes, felt empty.

  Guy waved out of his car window, a stiff, difficult wave. It was only then that Charmian noticed the other car which had drawn up while Guy had been helped into his seat. Charmian peered down; it looked like Godfrey’s car. It was, and Godfrey was climbing out, in his jerky way. She supposed he had come on an impulse to escape Mrs. Pettigrew. If only he could go to live in a quiet private hotel. But as he walked across the path, she noticed he looked astonishingly bright and healthy. She felt rather tired.

  Guy Leet considered, as he was driven home, whether in fact he was enjoying that sense of calm and freedom that is supposed to accompany old age or whether he was not. Yesterday he had been an old, serene man. To-day he felt younger and less peaceful. How could one know at any particular moment what one’s old age finally amounted to? On the whole, he thought, he must be undergoing the experience of calm and freedom, although it was not like anything he would have anticipated. He was, perhaps, comparatively untroubled and detached, mainly because he became so easily exhausted. He was amazed at Charmian’s apparent energy—and she ten years his senior. He supposed he must be a dear old thing. He was fortunate in possessing all his material needs, and now that Lisa’s will was being proved, he might possibly spend the winter in a really warm climate. And he had earned Lisa’s money. And he bore no grudge against Charmian for her ingratitude. Not many men would have married Lisa simply to keep her quiet for Charmian’s sake. Not many would have endured the secrecy of such a marriage, a mere legal bond necessary to Lisa’s full sensual enjovment of her many perversions. “I’ve got to be married,” she would say in that hoarse voice, “my dear, I don’t want the man near me, but I’ve got to know I’m married or I can’t enjoy myself.”

  Foolishly, they had exchanged letters on the subject, which might have upset his claim on Lisa’s money. He did not think Tempest’s suit would have succeeded, but it would have been unpleasant. But that eventuality had come to nothing. He would get Lisa’s money; he had earned it. He had given satisfaction to Lisa and safety to Charmian.

  He doubted if Charmian ever thought with gratitude of his action. Still, he adored Charmian. She had been wonderful, even when he had met her a year ago at a time when her mind was failing. Now that she was so greatly improved, what a pity she had this Godfrey trouble on her mind. However, he adored Charmian for what she had been and what she still really was. And he had earned Lisa’s money. Trinidad might be delightful next winter. Or Barbados. He must write for some information.

  When they drew up at the Old Stable Percy Mannering appeared out of the back garden and approached the car waving a magazine in the direction of the front door where Guy’s message was pinned up.

  “Away for a few days,” shouted Percy.

  “I have just returned,” said Guy. “Tony will give me a hand, and then we will go indoors for a drink. Meanwhile let us not alarm the lilies of the field.”

  “Away for a few days,” shouted Percy, “my foot.”

  Tony trotted round the car and took Guy by the arms.

  “I’ve been waiting,” shouted Percy, “for you.”

  Guy, as he was helped to his feet, was trying to recall what exactly he had written about Ernest Dowson in the latest published instalment of his memoirs which so enraged Percy. Guy was not a moment inside the door before he found out, for Percy then started to inform him.

  “You quote from the poem about Cynara,

  “‘I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.’

  “You then comment, ‘Yes, that was always Dowson’s way, even to the point of dying in the arm of another man’s wife—his best friend’s!’—That’s what you wrote, is it not?”

  “It must be,” said Guy, sinking into his chair, “if you say so.”

  “And yet you know as well as I do,” shouted Percy, “that Sherrard rescued Dowson from a pub and took him home to be nursed and fed. And Dowson did indeed die in Mrs. Sherrard’s arms, you utter snake; she was sustaining and comforting him in a sudden last spasm of his consumption. You know that as well as I do. And yet you write as if Dowson and she—”

  “I am but a hardened old critic,” said Guy.

  Percy banged his fist on the table. “Critic—You’re an unutterable rat.”

  “A hardened old journalist,” said Guy.

  “A steaming scorpion. Where is your charity?”

  “I know nothing of charity,” said Guy. “I have never heard of the steaming properties of the scorpion. I never cared for Dowson’s verse.”

  “You’re a blackguard—you’ve slandered his person. This has nothing to do with verse.”

  “What I wrote is the sort of thing, in my opinion, that might have happened,” said Guy. “It is as near enough my meaning.”

  “A cheap jibe,” yelled Percy. “Anything for a cheap joke, you’d say anything—”

  “It was quite cheap, I admit,” said Guy. “I am underpaid for these essays of mine.”

  Percy grabbed one of Guy’s sticks which were propped beside his chair. Guy grabbed the other stick and, calling out for Tony, looked up with his schoolboy face obliquely at Percy.

  “You will write a retraction,�
� said Percy Mannering, with his wolf-like look, “or I’ll knock your mean little brains out.”

  Guy aimed weakly with his stick at Percy’s stick, and almost succeeded in knocking it out of the old man’s quivering hand. Percy adjusted his stick, got it in both hands and with it knocked Guy’s stick to the floor, just as Tony came in with a tray and a rattle of glasses.

  “Jesus, Mary,” said Tony and put down the tray.

  “Tony, will you kindly recover my walking stick from Mr. Mannering.”

  Percy Mannering stood fiercely displaying his two greenish teeth and gripping the stick ready to strike, it seemed, anyone.

  Tony slithered cautiously round the room until Guy’s desk was between him and Percy. He lowered his head, rolled up his eyes, and glared at them from beneath his sandy eyebrows like a bull about to charge, except that he did not really look like a bull. “Take care what ye do,” he said to them both.

  Percy removed one of his hands from the shaking stick and took up the offensive journal. He fluttered this at Tony.

  “Your master,” he declared, “has uttered a damnable lie about a dead friend of mine.”

  “’Tis within the realm of possibility,” said Tony, clutching the edge of the desk.

  “If you will lay a piece of writing paper on the desk, Tony,” said Guy, “Mr. Mannering wishes to write a letter of protest to the editor of the magazine which he holds in his hand.”

  The poet grinned wildly. The telephone, which was on a side table beside Guy’s chair, mercifully rang out.

  “Come and answer the phone,” said Guy to Tony.

  But Tony was looking at Percy Mannering who still clung to the stick.

  The telephone rang on.

  “If ye will lift the instrument I’ll lay out the paper as requested,” said Tony, “for a man can do but one thing at a time.” He opened a drawer and extracted a sheet of paper.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Guy was saying, “well now, sonny, I’m busy at the moment. I have a poet friend here with me and we are just about to have a drink.”

  Guy heard the clear boyish voice continue: “Is it Mr. Percy Mannering who’s with you?”

  “That’s right,” said Guy.

  “I’d like to talk to him.”

  “For you,” said Guy, offering the receiver to Percy.

  “Me? Who wants me, what?”

  “For you,” said Guy, “a youngster of school age I should think.”

  Percy bawled suspiciously into the telephone, “Hallo, who’s there?”

  “Remember you must die,” said a man’s voice, not at all that of a young person.

  “This is Mannering here. Percy Mannering.”

  “That’s correct,” said the voice, and rang off.

  Percy looked round the room with a bewildered air. “That’s the chap they’re talking about,” he said.

  “Drinks, Tony,” said Guy.

  “That’s the man,” roared Percy, his eyes gleaming as with some inner greed.

  “Nice youngster, really. I suppose he’s been overworking at his exams. The cops will get him, of course.”

  “That wasn’t a youngster,” said Percy, lifting his drink and draining it off, “it was a strong mature voice, very noble, like W. B. Yeats.”

  “Fill Mr. Mannering’s glass, Tony,” said Guy. “Mr. Mannering will be staying for dinner.”

  Percy took his drink, laid down the stick, and sank into a chair.

  “What an experience!” he said.

  “Intimations of immortality,” commented Guy.

  Percy looked at Guy and pointed to the telephone. “Are you behind this?”

  “No,” said Guy.

  “No.” The old man drained his glass, looked at the clock and rose from his chair. “I’ll miss my train,” he said.

  “Stop the night,” said Guy. “Do stay.”

  Percy walked uncertainly about the room. He picked up the magazine, and said,

  “Look here—”

  “There is a sheet of paper laid out for you to write your protest to the editor,” Guy said.

  “Yes,” said the old man. “I’ll do that tomorrow.”

  “There is a passage in Childe Harold,” said Guy, “I would like to discuss with you. It—”

  “No one,” stated Percy, “in the past fifty years has understood Childe Harold. You have to begin with the last two cantos, man. That is the SECRET of the poem. The episodes—”

  Tony put his head round the door. “Did ye call me?”

  “No, but while you’re here, Mr. Mannering will be stopping the night.”

  Percy stayed the night and wrote his letter of protest to the editor next morning. He stayed for three weeks during which time he wrote a Shakespearian sonnet entitled “Memento Mori,” the final couplet of the first version being,

  Out of the deep resounds the hollow cry,

  Remember—oh, remember you must die!

  The second version being,

  But slowly the reverberating sigh

  Sounds in my ear: Remember you must die!

  The third being,

  And from afar the Voices mingle and cry

  O mortal Man, remember you must die!

  and there were many other revisions and versions.

  Eric Colston and Mrs. Pettigrew were waiting for Godfrey’s return.

  “There’s something funny going on in the old man’s mind to-day,” Mrs. Pettigrew said. “I should judge it was something to do with a visit from old Warner this morning. He couldn’t have stayed long. I had just gone across the road for cigarettes and when I got back there was Warner on the doorstep. I asked him if he wanted to see Godfrey. He said, ‘I’ve seen Godfrey, thanks.’ But I’ll find out what it’s all about—you just wait, I’ll find out. Then, when I got indoors Godfrey gave me a really wild grin and then he went out. I was too late to catch him. He didn’t come back to lunch, there’s his fish fingers lying on the table. Oh, I’ll find out.”

  “Has he signed the will yet?” said Eric.

  “No, the lawyers are taking their time.”

  Eric thought: I’ll bet they are taking their time. He had taken the first train to London on receiving that letter from Olive. His first action had been to call on the solicitor. His next was to get in touch with Mrs. Pettigrew.

  Mrs. Pettigrew filled Eric’s glass. She noticed, as she had done earlier in the day, his little hands, and she felt quite frightened.

  Eric was a stocky man, rather resembling his mother in appearance except that the feminine features and build looked odd in him. His hips were broad, his head was large. He had Charmian’s wide-spaced eyes, pointed chin and small neat nose. His mouth was large like that of Dame Lettie whose battered body was later that evening to be discovered.

  But, Mrs. Pettigrew told herself, she was experienced with men like Eric. Not that she had ever encountered quite the same details of behaviour in any other man. But she was familiar with the general pattern; she knew he was not normal, for though he greatly desired money he yet seemed willing to sacrifice quantities of it to gain some more intense and sinuous satisfaction. She had in her life before met men prepared to sacrifice the prospect of money in order to gain, for instance, a social ambition.

  To that extent she felt she knew her man. She felt it was not surprising that such a man would sacrifice anything for revenge. And yet, could she trust him?

  “I am doing this,” he had told her, “for moral reasons. I believe—I firmly believe, it will do the old man good. Teach him a lesson.”

  Oh, but Eric was a mess! She looked at his little hands and the feminine setting of the eyes like Charmian’s and felt perhaps she was foolish to trust him.

  Eric was a mess. Olive’s letter had told him his father was being blackmailed by “a certain Mrs. Pettigrew” into bequeathing a large portion of his fortune to her. Eric had acted promptly and without a moment’s thought. Even in the train up from Cornwall he had not taken thought but had flirted all the way with delicious ideas—the discomfit
ure of Godfrey; the undermining of Charmian; the possible sympathetic-bosomed qualities of this Mrs. Pettigrew under her possibly tough exterior; the thrill of being able to expose everyone to everyone if it proved expedient to do so; and the thrill of obtaining sufficient immediate cash to enable him to go and tell his Aunt Lettie what he really thought of her.

  Not that he knew what he thought of her. He retained in his mind an axiom from his youth: the family had let him down badly. Everyone, even the family, had agreed upon that in the years when Eric was between twenty-two and twenty-eight, and the century was between twenty-three and twenty-nine years old. He had rejected every idea his family had ever held except this one idea, “Somehow or other we have let Eric down. How did it happen? Poor Eric, Charmian has mothered him too much. Charmian has not been a mother enough to him. Godfrey has been too occupied, has never taken any notice of the boy. Godfrey has been too lenient, too strict, too mean, has given him too much money.” The elders had grown out of these sayings when the fashion changed, but by then Eric had taken them for his creed. Lettie bore him off on consoling holidays. He robbed her, and the hotel staff got the blame. She tried to get him interested in prison-visiting. He started smuggling letters and tobacco into Wormwood Scrubs. “Poor Eric, he hasn’t had a chance. He should never have been sent to that crank school. How could he ever be expected to pass an exam? I blame Charmian…I blame Lettie…Godfrey has never cared…” He went to an art school and was caught stealing six tubes of paint. They sent him to a Freudian analyst whom he did not like. They sent him to an Adlerian, and subsequently to an individualist. Meanwhile, there was an incident with a junior porter of a club, in the light of which he was sent to another psychiatrist of sympathetic persuasion. He was so far cured that he got one of the maids into trouble. Charmian was received into the Church.