by Angus Wilson
On the fourth morning, Jill said, ‘Meg, I’ve taken things into my own hands. It’s not possible for you to be here in this condition. I’m not in the position to nurse you. I don’t believe this flat is a good place for you. Dr Martin says that you can travel in. a closed car, so I’ve rung David and he’s coming this afternoon to take you down to Sussex. I don’t know whether it’s the right course, but I can’t take the responsibility in case you break down completely.’
BOOK THREE
NURSERY INS AND OUTS
SLOWING up at the side of the road, David pressed the button to lower the hood. He said, ‘People speak against these convertibles, but when you do get fine weather, it’s so well worth it.’
Meg said, ‘I think they’re ideal, David.’
The traffic was heavy on the road on this hot May afternoon. The cars seemed to pass them in little groups of three or four, held up by some slow-driving family party or elderly couple out for the run,
David said, ‘The trouble with a little spring weather round here is that all the residents of Seaford or Eastbourne come out of their retired holes to assure themselves that they aren’t dead.’
Meg smiled, ‘It’s a real holiday scene, isn’t it?’ she said. David looked at her for a moment but she was still smiling sweetly out towards the downland.
He said, ‘You get more variation here. I’m particularly fond of these chequered fields, especially where there are splashes of clover or mustard. It relieves the gauntness of those great, knobbly-kneed runs of downland.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they’re quite beautiful. In the sun,’ she added vaguely.
He said, ‘All the same, I think we’ve had enough of picnics up on the Downs in these last few days.’ She smiled at him as though in pleasure at their special agreement about this. ‘And there’s quite a wind today,’ she said. She seemed pleased to contribute. ‘And the sea,’ he said, ‘even down at Cuckmere Haven, would be horribly crowded.’
‘Yes, I don’t think the seaside would be any cop.’ If the slang word suggested a particular liveliness it was only by contrast with the uniform gentleness that now seemed to flatten out her speech. ‘We could turn off here,’ he said, ‘into Alciston. It’s one of the few villages round here that has not been tatted up for tourists. It’s warm there even in winter. But I don’t think it’ll be too hot …’
She interrupted him,’ Oh, no,’ she cried, ‘it’s so lovely to have the hot weather, David.’
‘I managed to evade Else’s picnic basket today. I thought we’d had enough delicatessen on our outings this week.’
‘They’re so good, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘I’m amazed at how many things Else can do. And all so well. And she’s really one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.’
He said, drawing up in front of a cottage with wooden benches and tables in the front garden, ‘I’m afraid this will be no more than a farmhouse tea. No leberwurst.’
She said, ‘How lovely.’ He deliberately said nothing, did not even leave the car.
She said, after waiting for a minute or two, ‘What an attractive garden it is, David. What are those spiky plants with the yellow flowers?’
‘Crown Imperials. They’re a fritillary. You get them in a lot of cottage gardens. There are some by the east wall in Gordon’s garden.’
She said, ‘Oh, I must go and look at them when we get back.’
At the tea table, piling strawberry jam on to her slices of bread and butter, she said as though continuing a conversation, ‘I suppose you’re right. I did always resent Father leaving us like that and probably I did blame it on Mother.’ She frowned at the puzzle. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I never was able to see that they were just incompatible and that by not accepting it I only made things more difficult for her. Poor Mother!’
David said, ‘I think so.’
Meg said, ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure, David.’ She helped herself to two pieces of madeira cake at once.
David said, ‘Those’ll be rather dry, Meg. Let me ask for some more jam.’
She looked at him a moment questioningly. ‘Oh, would you, David? That would be lovely. I love jam on cake. Yes, I’m sure you’re right. That the only thing to think about them both is that they were as they were. Or at any rate that we couldn’t have done anything about it. Of course, I think I was bound to think as I did then. I don’t blame myself for that. That would be silly, don’t you think?’ She was speaking so quickly with her mouth full that David had some difficulty in understanding her. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘the girl sides with the father and the boy with the mother. I always thought those rules were too simple to be true, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t be, do you? As you say, it’s far better to accept these things.’
‘I don’t think I ever said quite that, Meg,’ he laughed.
She laughed in answer but a little strainedly. ‘No. I don’t suppose you did. I meant your general view of withdrawal.’ She paused. ‘What I mainly mean,’ she went on, ‘is that I really think that I can now accept Mother and why she was as she was.’
David said, frowning, ‘You were bound to find it a strain living with her. You could never live like that. Any more than I could.’
She said, ‘No, we couldn’t, could we? All that moving about.’
‘I don’t think it was only that for you, Meg, you know. It was the sort of places and people she moved about in.’
‘It wasn’t my sort of world certainly. But they were both very restless. Father must have been driven on by something too.’
‘I think he was ambitious, though heaven knows it came to nothing. And curious about things too,’ David added judiciously.
Meg said without a moment’s pause, ‘Yes, I suppose that, when I really come to think about it, I see that he was.’ She ate the remaining biscuit. ‘I think I just want to stay put.’ She laughed.
He said, waiting for the change from a pound, ‘Shall we walk up into the foot of the Downs?’
‘Oh, yes. That would be lovely,’ she cried. She got up and set off to the gate so that he had to run to catch her up.
She said, pulling off buds from the heads of yarrow and dropping them into the high grass as they walked up the road, ‘You do really think that I could not have managed at Jill’s, David?’
He said, ‘Yes, of course. I’ve told you so. In any case,’ he laughed, ‘I honestly think from the way she spoke that she wouldn’t have let you stay there.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean you do think that it was understandable my trying to improve things between her and Evelyn, even though I went the wrong way about it.’
‘Yes. Very understandable. As you know I personally believe that one can’t help people much. I’m inclined to think it’s better to stand aside.’
‘You do mean then that I should have adapted myself to Jill’s attitude to Leonard …’
‘No, no,’ David interrupted. ‘Withdrawal doesn’t mean acceptance. In fact in this case literally the opposite. You should have withdrawn yourself altogether. There’s no cause to moralize about Jill Stokes’ embittered attitude, but there’s also no reason for living with it. What would be the sense of that?’
Meg walked beside him in silence for a few minutes. She continued to flick buds from the weeds as she walked. A tough scabious plant resisted the light pull of her finger-tips and she stopped for a moment, dragging at the whole plant. Its steady resistance seemed to rouse her from her thoughts, for she said, ‘It’s so difficult to give other people what one doesn’t ask for oneself. Although I see that that’s an egotistical approach. And not satisfactory. Just because I don’t feel that my pride is a sort of guardian of Bill’s memory doesn’t mean that Jill truly …’ She broke off, then a second later began to speak very quickly, ‘I do think I was bound to feel that I should try and make some effort to come out of my grief. And then Jill’s feelings about things were so much what I feared to fall into. You see the suddenness and the strangeness of Bill’s death don’t really
make any difference to the fact. I have to adapt myself like anybody else. Only, Andrew’s must have seemed the same to Jill. As you might expect, I’d never really fully thought about that. But you see Bill’s death was an awful shock and I thought, “I won’t ever be caught off my guard again. I must know what’s going on in the world.” It seemed so important not to sit back, I ought to have known after the fool I made of myself with Tom Pirie, but I was surprised when I talked to Jill’s son-in-law. You see Bill and I lived in a very narrow circle in a way …’
David had been looking anxiously around as the words poured out over him. Now from the last farmhouse yard of the village came waddling a fat green-black Muscovy duck. He said, ‘I like those creatures.’
Meg broke off immediately. ‘Oh, yes,’ she cried, ‘they are delightful, aren’t they? What sort of ducks are they?’
‘Muscovy ducks,’ he said. ‘They’re excellent table birds.’ He waited as though expecting some comment on this phrase but none came. ‘The white are particularly fine,’ he added. Then, as they left the village behind, she said suddenly, ‘You’re very good at withdrawing. From conversations, I mean.’
He laughed. ‘It’s nice to hear a little bite in your comments again, Meg,’ he said.
In her turn she laughed but nervously. ‘Is it, David?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I must be an awful bore nowadays. But there’s so little reason for biting. Honestly, David, I shouldn’t have believed that people could have been so kind as everyone has been here. Else, it goes without saying, of course. But did I tell you how good Mrs Rattray was? She’d come in to see you, I think, and she heard me crying upstairs. I’d got up to wash my face and I broke a bottle of hand lotion. My hands were cut and everything seemed so hopeless. She was so kind and so efficient. She’s been a nurse, hasn’t she? Did I tell you how good she was, David?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you did tell me, Meg.’
‘But I don’t think I told you that it was she who first suggested that her husband should visit me. She said it would do me good to see men as well as women, Tim’s a quite enchanting person, isn’t he? He’s obviously first rate at his job. And then Mrs Boniface! She’s wonderful. The crown of all daily helps and yet not just a character but a person.’ She searched his face as she spoke.
He said, ‘I’m glad they’ve all been so helpful.’ They had passed the small copse now and were out on the open downland. He sat down abruptly on a grass hummock. ‘Meg,’ he said, ‘if there were anything at Srem Panh that you felt you hadn’t truly faced, you wouldn’t let any silliness about money stand in the way of you taking a trip back there, would you?’
Her short, tight skirt did not allow her to spread herself on the grass with his agility. She stood over him, her shadow cutting out the sun, reminding him how cold the wind still was, and he thought how smart she always managed to look – this brownish-pink dress, for instance. Looking at her now, he could hardly identify her as she had been throughout April – with her hair seldom brushed, her face grubbily white without make-up, her dressing gown food-stained; but the breakdown had nevertheless marked her so that she looked at moments sixty and then again sometimes five or six years less than her age.
She said, ‘Srem Panh? Oh no, David, there’s nothing there. I’ve almost ceased to remember it, thanks to Andredaswood. When I look out of my window in the morning here over to the forest, I …’
He interrupted her, ‘Look, Meg,’ he said, ‘there could be things there that have played some part in your illness. You have spoken once or twice of your feeling above all that the unknown had so suddenly struck at you. And it was so, of course. I feel that the events that caused Bill’s death lie behind you, like a cupboard full of bogies. I can understand you shutting the doors so firmly at the time. At the time you wanted to escape. But now it worries me, I confess, that you should seem so little curious about the background to his death.’ She had folded herself down beside him now; her long legs tucked under her, her knees protruding below her skirt. She stared at him in distress, but he looked away and continued talking, ‘Perhaps if you were only to read some books about the place. And the families of those young men – I understand so well what a horror it was to you to be able to do nothing to save them. I know that’s all past, but the families might need help.’ His voice died away. He saw as soon as he said it that there was nothing for her in Badai. Yet he knew he was searching for some expression of the disquiet he felt.
Meg seemed surprised at his incoherence. She waited for him to say more, picking at the straggling roots of a cinquefoil. Then she said, ‘Oh, I don’t think so, David. I’ve felt that this sudden blow from outside was only a symbol of my ignorance of the world. That I’d been punished for living in a fool’s paradise. But to say that a thing is a symbol surely means in a way that it’s something one should dismiss once one’s seen what it’s a symbol of, doesn’t it? It did make me feel that I shouldn’t be caught again. That I should be more involved here in England. Now I don’t know really. But I never thought I ought to know anything about Badai. Why should I? It was purely accidental that it all happened there. And as to the possibility that such accidents have some meaning on another level, I know little enough about the surface reality without looking further. I was upset that I could do nothing for these men, but it taught me, I must say, the limitations of my powers. That lesson ought to have made me more withdrawn if anything could. But I see I don’t understand what you mean by withdrawal if it implies involvement in Badai politics.’
He saw that her smile was ironical. Once again he was pleased that she should be laughing at him and pleased, too, that his incoherence had made her speak with some certainty. He laughed. ‘I was being illogical,’ he said. He thought how delighted Gordon would have been with the whole occasion. ‘I think you’re quite right. I just wanted you to feel that there was no difficulty about money.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t if I wanted it,’ she said. ‘But in any case Doctor Loder has been most emphatic that I should forget the whole thing as far as I can. I do consider myself lucky in having him. He’s quite unusual for a G.P., David, isn’t he? He’s so alive and intelligent.’
David said, ‘He’s all right. He couldn’t have been more obtuse over Gordon’s death but …’
She looked for a few moments distressed and anxious, then she said, ‘Yes, I suppose he is very limited. Everyone here seems so special to me.’
David got up. ‘I think we should go back now,’ he said briskly. Seated in the car, he said, ‘Shall we go back through Lewes and have a drink there, or round through Glynde?’ Before she could refuse, he said, ‘No, Meg, I want you to decide.’
Distressed, she stared at him. ‘Don’t you think,’ she said at last, ‘that with so many people about we might avoid the town and have a quiet drink at home?’
‘Well. Yes, I do,’ he said.
‘I’m so glad,’ she said. Relief at his agreement seemed to relax her. She lay back and closed her eyes.
As they were following the hairpin river road, he cried, startled by a sudden grey streak of flight, ‘There goes a heron, Meg.’
She woke startled. ‘Oh, yes. How fascinating!’ she cried. And now she sat, looking out of the window and commenting brightly. ‘Isn’t that an enchanting church? Are there many Norman churches around here, David? What an attractive white house! Whose lodge gates are those, I wonder? It’s so beautiful at this time of the evening, isn’t it?’
He could have kicked himself for destroying her mood of calm. At last he said, ‘I think your dress is very beautiful. I’d forgotten how smart you always succeed in looking, Meg.’
She stopped in the middle of a sentence extolling the size of an elm tree and looked at him. Then she laughed, ‘Did you think I’d wear that old sat out tweed skirt for the rest of my life, David? Of course not. Only I couldn’t really put on anything decent while I was still weeping everywhere, could I?’
He felt that he had struck a hopeful note of disagreement. He sought to
improve on it. ‘Would you call that dress pink or brown?’ he asked.
‘Or beige, I wonder?’ she said still laughing and imitating his rather prissy tone. ‘Do you really want to know, David? They’ve all come back, you know, the beiges and the dirty pinks that Mother would have worn when we were children if she’d been smarter and less determined always to wear smart black.’
He said, ‘I don’t remember.’
She answered, ‘Oh, nonsense. You’re only two years younger than I am. If I wanted to be whimsical I should ask myself what happens to all these delightful colours when they aren’t in fashion. Do they live in some world of absolute values?’
‘Do you want to be whimsical?’
‘No. I don’t think so. Except perhaps about those dirndl skirts Else wears in the evenings.’ She closed her eyes again and slept. As they approached Andredaswood, he woke her.
‘Meg,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I think we’ll have to do without an expedition tomorrow.’
She was at once alarmed. ‘Oh, dear God!’ she said.
‘Well, I really must give some attention to the nursery. You do see that.’
She answered quickly, ‘Oh, yes, of course, I do see that. Yes, of course you must. I’ll sit in Gordon’s garden if the weather stays hot like this. Perhaps you may find you have a few moments in the afternoon and come and sit with me?’
‘I’m sure I shall,’ he said.
‘Well, you mustn’t come unless you’re really able to, David. I intend to start reading Hardy through again. So I’ll be quite all right. Do you think I should begin with Bathsheba or with the Albrights?’ she asked as they stopped at the front door. ‘I thought not Jude because it’s not typical,’ she was saying as they went into the house.
Else Bode, greeting them in the hall, asked, ‘And was the country also so beautiful today, Meg?’