by Mary Renault
“I haven’t filled mine.”
He smiled. “Your life’s only begun.” It was only afterwards that he wondered why neither of them had found this amusing. “Sleep well.”
“Good night, Jan. Thank you for coming.” As he turned to the door she rose and, as if moved by some sudden impulse of disquiet, came after him and took his arm. “Even if you can’t do anything, Jan, I’m glad you came. It’s so long since last time. Don’t go away without seeing me again, will you?”
“Of course not. I promise. Sleep if you can.” He kissed her, and went out. She stood in the doorway, watching him, till he turned the corner of the corridor.
Jan, as he walked to the High Street, wished that Mic ran to a telephone. He would have liked to announce himself from a decent distance; dwellers in small flats were, after all, singularly defenceless against an unwelcome caller. Once away from Vivian and her distraught hopes, he could see no valid reason why Mic should be even pleased to see him, and several good ones for slamming the door in his face. Besides, there was always the chance of taking Mic somehow off his guard, and he was not likely to receive that with Vivian’s indifference.
The flat windows were lit. He opened the street door, considered for a moment, then closed it again softly and knocked. Nothing happened the first time, but after the next attempt he heard the window above him open. There was a moment’s stillness, then, “Good God, Jan. Is that you?”
“Hullo,” he said, looking up. The leaning face, half in shadow, was only a blur.
“Come on up, you bloody fool; you know that door’s never locked.”
He came in and groped for the light. Presently Mic switched it on from above. They met on the landing. Jan’s first thought was not what he had expected. It was simply, He’s grown up.
“Come in,” Mic said. He spoke like someone who is trying with a certain curiosity to make up his mind what he feels.
The place was in a reckless litter; Mic had been working, clipping out and filing portions of periodicals that he wanted to keep and discarding the remains where they happened to fall. It was not like what Jan remembered of his methods. He pushed an armful of rubbish off a chair, picked a new paper out of it, and pulled the chair up to the fire. “Why on earth didn’t you say you were coming? I might have been out.”
“I didn’t know I was coming till today.”
“Like the Queen’s Hall,” said Mic, recalling an old joke. They both smiled, at first spontaneously, then with sudden recollection and constraint.
“Are you working at anything vital?” Jan asked. “If so, I’ll read while you finish. Or come tomorrow. Plenty of time.”
“Oh, Lord, no. Just the monthly clearance. About as vital as playing patience.”
Jan knew the monthly clearances. Mic used, he remembered, to effect them in about half an hour, absently meticulous, while he listened to the gramophone or talked about something else. Following Jan’s eyes over the mess, he appeared to be about to say something, but changed his mind. “Cigarette?” he suggested, offering them.
“Thanks,” said Jan, “I’ve got a pipe somewhere.” He felt for it, thinking, He’s not well, of course. I suppose it’s natural for her to have concentrated on that.
“How did you” Mic who had just lit himself a cigarette, coughed, apologised, and put it out again. “Road or rail?”
“Rail. Maine’s got the car in Ireland.”
“Do you ever use your own car at all?”
“Oh, yes, when I really want it. I never use it so much in winter, you know. I’m not a very desirable night-driver, for one thing. Find it too fatally easy to think.”
“Thought, its cause and cure.” Mic got up, and began stacking the papers on the table. Presently, while Jan was still filling his pipe, he turned, stood still for a minute, and then said quite steadily, “Have you seen Vivian yet?”
“Yes.” Jan looked at the bowl critically, and packed on a final layer. “I saw her just before I came here.”
“How much did she tell you?”
“How do I know? The elements, I suppose.”
He struck a match. It made a little dazzle of flame between them, hiding them from one another.
“Whatever she said,” Mic went on evenly, “I’m the one principally to blame.”
Jan looked up.
“I shouldn’t start cultivating a sense of sin, my dear. You’ve got trouble enough without that.”
Mic said nothing for a moment. Then, “I’ve found it’s better than cultivating a sense of injury. When balance becomes impossible, you have to choose the less dangerous of your aberrations.”
It was not an easy remark to follow up. In the ensuing pause, Mic continued to sort armfuls of torn paper from clippings and whole books, and Jan to sort his impressions. The nearest he could get to summarising them was to decide that Mic’s personality seemed to have been burned or starved to a skeleton. Such curves and soft places as it had had were gone; the hard framework of support stood stripped, its construction and articulations showing. It was a structure without much elegance, but it had a kind of hard-beaten fineness and was, Jan thought, considering all things, surprisingly straight.
Mic crammed down the last sheaf into the waste-paper basket, and came back to the fire.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I suppose I ought to be apologising to you for making your sister unhappy. Did she ask you to come? God knows I—” He gave a sudden abrupt laugh.
“You’re so extraordinarily incongruous in a situation of this kind, somehow. Some people are nature’s relatives, some not. Forgive me. You must think I don’t take this seriously.”
“Must I? I have the use of my faculties.”
“I suppose you know we were meaning to get married?”
“I dare say Vivian said so. I can’t remember. I imagined you would if the thing lasted; it’s more convenient.”
Mic laughed again, this time not without amusement.
“Honestly, Jan! Is that the best impersonation of a relative you can put up? I could do it better myself. You ought to have a horsewhip—or a dogwhip is it? Then I could lose my temper and hit you and you could knock me out. Didn’t your father ever tell you that sort of thing? I thought that was the great point about having one.”
“Simple, wouldn’t it be?” said Jan.
Mic lowered himself into his chair and leaned back with a little grunt of satisfaction, almost of contentment. They looked at one another, in a brief but effectual exchange of understanding; one of those moments when nothing is reached for, but truth passes unhindered. It was strange, Jan thought, that in this man, so in disorder, so scarcely his own master, he should recognise so inevitably the friend he had failed till now to find. But it was so; the needed freedom, the equality, the shared angle of sight. Mic knew it also; Jan could see, in the ease of his face and limbs, the untroubled acceptance of something not discovered, but recognised. It was all good and plain and whole, a moment like bread. This simple and satisfying thing had been shown them when it was, perhaps, already too late. For Jan had no illusions that this by itself could make much difference. Compared with the conflict that was tearing Mic apart it was transient, even superficial. He could not last much longer like this. His growth was like that of a plant in darkness, which, unless light is given in time, soon turns to etiolation and death. Jan knew now that he wanted light not for Mic’s sake only but for his own.
“I wonder,” he said, “why you’re so determined to consider yourself a psychological cripple. I’m all for confronting the worst when it exists; but in this instance, I think out of an overdone honesty you’re very largely creating it.”
“I might have created the interpretation. But not the experience.”
“Don’t you think the experience is probably rather normal?”
“Not among properly regulated people.”
“How many people do you suppose are properly regulated, to their personal knowledge?”
Mic looked up with a faint smile. He had b
een about to say, “You, for one,” but refrained lest he should be suspected of an irony he did not feel. Instead he said, “If it were only a matter of personal knowledge I could put up with it. Frankly, Jan, while I’m capable of this I don’t consider myself fit for any permanent relationship. I couldn’t go through it a second time. One has no right simply to put one’s mind down the drain. Apart from the—inconvenience to other people.”
“I fancy you wouldn’t have to again.”
“I should expect it even when it seemed least probable. Why not: I could foresee this. Nothing seems incredible after it.”
“You might at first. But it might be a risk worth taking.”
“No. I’m sorry; but take it from me, it isn’t. Still less for her than for me.”
“You can’t decide whether other people’s risks are worthwhile. Stick to your own and leave hers to her.”
“At present it’s not even worth it for me. I—well, for obvious reasons I can’t tell you everything I feel. You know people enough to have some idea.”
“Probably. It’s a perfectly normal reaction, and generally I believe a passing one when the cause is removed. As, in this case, it is.”
“How do you know it is?”
“I don’t, but I’m sure. Aren’t you?”
“I’m sure of nothing, now. I tell you, whatever happens it can never be the same.”
“Perhaps not. That’s very likely. But it needn’t prevent you from evolving something different and equally satisfactory. Possibly more.”
“Habit,” said Mic slowly, “is a very strong thing. And habits of feeling are probably the strongest of the lot. I didn’t realise, till this happened. I’ve thought, once or twice, that perhaps only the impact of some kind of violence—an absolutely clean break into some different kind of thought one couldn’t escape. …” He took a handful of papers from the mantelpiece and picked out a letter. “I got this today. I’m still thinking it over.”
Jan took the sheet, which was typed by an amateur, in an urgent hurry, on an old machine.
“Dear Freeborn,” he said, “Here is the information you wanted. If you decide to join us, the sooner the better. The Brigade was badly cut up last week, as you probably know, and every man now may be decisive in saving Madrid. When you—”
Jan lowered the letter, to find Mic watching his face.
“Surely,” he said, “your principles have changed rather radically?”
“I suppose so.”
“Or is it just a process of decomposition?” Jan’s voice had an edge to it. He was ashamed of himself at once; the fact was that he did not want Mic to go.
Mic blinked, and said, without ill feeling, “You can be most effectively cruel when you choose, can’t you? I wonder why you choose so seldom. You hate unexercised faculties.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I quite meant it. I was surprised, that’s all.”
“There’s some truth in it. My sense of the value of human life seems to have depended partly on a belief in the usefulness of my own. When your knife’s got a chipped blade you might as well use it up for digging up weeds.”
“Weeds? You always used to say it was unbiological to divide life up into gradations of value.”
“It’s the essence of pathology, though,” Mic said.
Jan returned to the letter, and finished it.
“Who is this man?” he asked. “Hike him.”
“A Communist who lives in Fulham. How inconsistent you are.”
“Why? He’s the kind of man a war like that belongs to; single-minded. He’s made the escape from his own ego and seen the hosts of the Lord. Probably he’s too much occupied in feeling other people’s wrongs to know he’s a happy man, but he is. I’d like to meet him.”
“Well, that’s his address. I shall probably be meeting him myself next week.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“In the first place I doubt if you’d be much practical use. You’re not fit enough.”
“Fresh air’s a good thing.”
“Don’t be a damned fool, you know what the conditions are like out there. Do you intend to do the job you enlist for, or not? Because if it’s a suicide you’re after, you could manage that at home with less annoyance to other people.”
“You put things astringently,” said Mic with bleak approval. “But—no, I don’t think it’s suicide, or not necessarily. It’s just that if I can only get out of this tangle I’m in, I don’t much care whether I die or not. Indifference to death is a good start for soldiering, anyway.”
“Belief in your cause is a better one.”
“I believe in the cause all right.”
“But not as a cause for war.”
“There are so many things I don’t believe in. One needs to live as though some belief existed.”
“I wish—” said Jan slowly.
“Wish what?”
“Nothing useful.” He had wished he could offer something in settlement of this, of which, though Mic seemed to have forgotten it, he was the cause; but it was not the kind of speech he was practised in making.
“You may be right,” he said. “I suppose one does sometimes arrive at an impasse where nothing but a break of experience is any use. Out of two choices it’s the weaker; but if it’s the only choice, of course, it’s justifiable.”
“I think it is, for me.”
Jan knocked out his pipe.
“Still got your car?” he said.
“Sort of. I really shall have to scrap it soon.”
“Let’s go out.”
“What, now?” Mic looked at the clock.
“I feel like it. D’you mind?”
“No, I suppose not. Might be a good idea.”
Mic was used to Jan’s nocturnal wanderings, though they had generally been conducted on foot. The recollections that stirred in his mind were mixed, but without ennui. Remembering the uncertain duration of these excursions, he threw a meal together before they started.
Jan ate absentmindedly, but with good appetite; he had had nothing since he left Cambridge, but till now had forgotten the fact. His mind still clung obstinately to the hope of he knew not what suddenly revealed solution; but the time available for revelation seemed brief. Driving always stimulated his ideas, especially in the dark. There was something in the rhythm of it, and the pale stream of the passing world as it slid into the circle of one’s headlights and out again, like vanity and time. Even if he arrived at something it would probably be useless to Mic; second-hand answers meant nothing, seven times out of ten. But he could not be content to leave anything untried.
They walked round to the garage, not talking much.
“Seems to get younger every day,” said Jan, inspecting the car. “May I?” He climbed into the driver’s seat.
“What?” Mic had just returned from hooking back the doors. “You don’t mean drive?”
“Yes. Can I?”
“Of course, only—”
“It’s all right. I know about the clutch.”
“Well, I suppose if you like.”
“I remember all the tricks. Look. I can open the door.”
“Oh, all right. You’ll have to give yourself plenty of room to pull up, though. The brake-linings are pretty far gone. I didn’t mean to use it again till I’d had it done. Costs such a damned lot.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll look after it.”
The car started complainingly. Mic shut the garage doors and got in.
“Look here, Jan, honestly, I think I’d better take over. The thing’s in a hell of a mess, a lot worse than when you were here. I ought not to be running it at all.”
“Of course, if you’d rather.” Jan stopped the car again, and, with his sweetest smile, went through faint motions of preparing to move. “I don’t want to get on your nerves if you think I can’t handle it. But I don’t feel like a passenger tonight, somehow. Let’s walk instead.”
“Oh, carry on. What does it matte
r? You’re probably a damned sight safer than I would be, if it comes to that.” Mic settled himself back in his place. Night-walking had acquired a different set of associations for him in the last month; besides, he was tired. Jan with his mind made up to something was more than he felt equal to. “The tyres are worn,” he said, yawning, “so look out on the bends.”
Jan manoeuvred the town, cautiously at first as he felt his way into the car, then with increasing confidence and speed. As the lights slipped past him, he could feel the beginning of the mood of elation and distance that he knew. The perplexities of things receded. He knew himself on the verge of something spacious and delightful. The roads were good, the wind was crisp but not intolerably cold. In this part of the country no snow had fallen. There was a high clear moon.
Jan drove on, in open country now, amusing himself at first with the car’s peculiarities, but slowly feeling them sink into the background of his consciousness. Its noises—a rhythmic rattle, a squeak at longer intervals, the loose hoarseness of the engine—smoothed his brain with their monotony. The hedgerows streamed by, a moving funnel of rusty light tipped with darkness. He changed the worn gears carefully as the road began to climb. Relationships, he was thinking, ought to be mapped. They would make lovely patterns, intricate intersecting traceries of sinuous lines, like the tracks of skaters, or of skiers in a snowslope. He began to see it against the black of the windscreen.
“Well?” said Mic.
Jan’s map lost its shape and shrivelled into a little formless rag, like cobweb before the broom.
“Did you see that girl in the black Bentley,” he said, “when we stopped just now?”
“Too bad. You could have pursued her in a better car. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I didn’t want to pursue her.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Mic wearily. “Sorry I woke you up.”
Jan humoured the car up the final steepness that led to the crest of the Downs.
“You don’t need to scrap this,” he remarked. “It’s good for years.”
“It seems to like you.”