The Chinese Room

by Vivian Connell

  Only once had each of them snapped a nerve and jumped out of the silent morgue of the English mind. One night when he had come back from Edinburgh, he had said: “Damn it, you do nothing.”

  And remembering that in her mind, she had said later: “Nick, why don’t you put your gloves on before you get into bed?”

  That closed the communicating door for four months, and repression festered in them. And, her nerves in a tangle, she had from this point lost her confidence in meeting a more gay, liberal, and aristocratic society than the army crowd. Unpleasant memories of failing to held her ground came into her mind now, and she knew that it had worried Nicholas, who, even if he had Cabinet ministers tied to his purse strings, had no more social standing himself than one generation at a public school. In time she had discovered that her lack of humor in taking salt and risque conversation sprang from the same feeling of shame about sex which she had inherited and which she had failed to liberate in her failure with Nick. And now, her mind opened as fully as her body by MacGregor, she realized that every social constraint in a woman sprang from a lack of sexual confidence. Once she had abandoned her idea of giving way to an accomplished Mayfair specialist in cuckolding husbands simply because she lacked confidence in her knowledge of sexual technique. And she remembered how that had given her a feeling of inferiority to women in fashionable society. And not once with Nick had she that confidence to instigate things which is the confirmation of a woman to herself. And now she knew that when she had laid her head on MacGregor’s bronzed and thundering chest she had burst a thousand bolts and bars in herself.

  Then suddenly Saluby came into her mind, and recalling her bitter talk with him half an hour ago on the telephone, she wondered why in heaven’s name she had given way to this insidious leech. And then she knew that it was because he had somehow got inside her with the corkscrew of a psychological diagnosis as tangible as an anatomical exploration. Like a microbe he had conquered her from within. Unpleasantly as she felt about him, she realized that without him she might never have started on this new and rich expansion of herself, although before Saluby had come she had felt herself heavy and loaded with this summer as a peach with juice. It was the old story, he had come at plucking time, and the fruit just fell into his hand.

  Resentfully as she thought about him, she felt in another way more resentful to MacGregor. He had just opened a door, let her glimpse a marvelous world, and then shut it again behind his departing heels. She remembered waking on last Tuesday morning with’ a feeling of happiness and solace in every corner of her being. And in a gradual way her peace had declined up to this hour, until, she knew as her thighs squeezed on her hand, she wanted him badly now. She had several times during the last few days almost written to MacGregor, but instead she had gone out and walked off her desire. Not only was it a humiliating thing to seek MacGregor, but she was afraid of the hold he might get on her. Whatever she felt for him was more direct and touchable than the urgent but inexperienced desire that Nicholas had aroused in her and which had dissolved in marriage. She did not know which feeling was love, or if either of them was love. And she did not know if she wanted MacGregor for himself, or because he gave her love, and she could not tell if she could get that joy only from MacGregor. But that, she knew, as Blake came along the garden, was what she was going to find out by the only known way—comparative experience. She would learn to tell John by Thomas. She wanted love, and the knowledge of love, and she was going to get it wherever she could find it. And she had no scruples. What did Blake want?

  “Mrs. Biddle wants some things from the village, madam. If you don’t want the car, can I run down for them?”

  “Yes, of course, Blake.” She paused. “No, I’ll go down and get them myself. I’m doing nothing.”

  “Marvelous how this weather is holding up, madam,” said Blake as they walked along the garage. He paused. “I noticed when I was coming over this morning, madam, that there’s a good deal of trespassing going on in the Corner Wood by the village, madam.”

  “Oh, better tell Cantlebye, Blake.”

  “Well, madam, he don’t seem inclined to do anything about it. He says the cold weather will put it right again.”

  “Cold weather? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, madam, it’s them young romantic couples from the village that’s coming in and spoiling the wood.”

  Suddenly she stopped and looked Blake straight in the eye. -

  “Good God, Blake, what harm is that! They’ve got to go somewhere.”

  She got into the car and smiled all the way down the avenue at the look of astonishment on Blake’s mannered face.

  EIGHTEEN

  As Muriel went round the last bend of the avenue, she put her finger on the horn button and then decided to jump out herself and open the gate. It was ridiculous to make old Fuidge hobble out just to open the gate. A thought struck into her mind—“How damned old money makes us!” Nicholas, too, could never stand a schoolboy giving a groom an order to fetch a saddle while he lounged about waiting in the yard. Ha! She wouldn’t have to get out after all! As she slowed down the car, a young man passing on the road saw her, waved his hand in a kind of signal, and came over and pushed the heavy gates wide for her car. She remarked that it was a lovely day, and he nodded and took no notice of her. She could not recognize him as belonging to the village. He looked dark and Spanish, or perhaps had that mahogany color from the sunlight, for he obviously lived in the kingdom of the open air. He wore blue trousers of the cloth a Spanish peasant wears, and a canary-yellow shirt with a V opening. He had a satchel perhaps holding the things he needed for a life on the road, for he had a vagabond look and, one felt certain, a vagabond soul. There was a curious twist running through his dark hair, as if it had been curled just a little on somebody’s fingers. He had opened the gates now and came over and looked at her in an amused way, and she had a feeling that his words got warmed on his red lips before they came to her.

  “Would you like me to wait here and open it for you when you come back?”

  But for his smile that would have disconcerted her. “Oh no! Thank you.” She put her hand on the lever. “Thank you for opening the gate.”

  “Well, it’s as good a way as any of spending the day, waiting to open a gate for a beautiful woman.”

  Muriel remembered that she was the squire’s wife and wished heartily that she was as sure of his social rating. It was as hard to place him as one of those Scotsmen or Irishmen who kept their native accents so that one could not tell in circumstances like this whether one was talking to a lord or a laborer. She felt she had better say something.

  “Oh, don’t you do anything?”

  “Well, it all depends on how you look at it.” He looked up at the sun. “You might think the sun up there very busy, or doing nothing at all.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, thank you for opening the gate.”

  She felt in an annoyed way that everything inside her was visible to him, and that she could see nothing behind his green or hazel eyes. He had the air of a gypsy to whom every field is a home and every house a prison. And somehow he now made her feel that her car was a cage and that he was looking in through the bars at her. She could not wholly guard the curiosity in her, and she was forced to answer his smile.

  “I’ll bet it’s got a radio!”

  From where he stood he could not see the radio in the car, but he saw the flush on her face. That simple and shrewd remark seemed to be his whole summary of her and her way of living. She was so disconcerted that she started up the engine. As she was about to go, he looked her in the eye, and he looked at her as directly as the sun looked down on the lawn. She stammered out a “Thank you” like a flustered schoolgirl, and as she drove out the gates, she felt she could hear a laughter behind her.

  The incident disturbed her, and when she had driven half a mile she found that she had stopped the car by the gable of a wood to let her think. She spoke aloud in astonishment. “God, I ran away f
rom him.” She could see his eyes like polished olives. “That’s what he meant. I’ve got this damn car to run away from life in!” His mouth had stretched out lazy as a lizard in his smile. “He’s probably not got a penny, and he’s wandering about from nowhere to nowhere, and he made me feel a damn fool! Or maybe he’s wandering about from everywhere to everywhere, and here am I sitting on a cushion in the middle of nowhere.

  God, I wonder will he be there when I get back. Good Lord, I just bolted away like a damn dithery girl! I simply can’t go back until lunchtime!”

  She was astonished to realize how much this had upset her. She was vague and not interested in the shopping, and old Mr. Tynham in the grocer’s had to ring up Mrs. Biddle at the Hall to confirm an order. Mr. Tynham had protested that he could have sent the order up with a boy on a bicycle.

  Muriel left the shop and found herself in a temper. Damn it, she was the mistress of Barrington Hall, and she knew as much about the kitchen there as if she were a weekend guest. And she had asked that young man at the gate if he had nothing to do! What the hell did she do? She got so rattled that she drove the car up to the waterfall in the village park and sat there to kill time and think it over and give that damned gypsy time to go away. And suddenly she pitched pretense to hell and lighted a cigarette and let her fancy roam in much detail about what might have happened if she had also been a vagabond and had met him in a field. “My God, I was just stark naked when he looked at me, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. What the devil do I know about a man like him? What the devil do I know about anything? Oh, hell, it’s nearly lunchtime!”

  When she got back he was not at the gate, and her heart jumped up in relief and then dropped in dismay. She looked at Margaret, the young country maid, when she got into the hall, and felt jealous of her. By heavens, if Margaret had met that young man...

  “Oh, madam, Dr. Saluby has rung up three times, and he has asked you to ring him back.”

  Not even Margaret’s presence could stay the angry blood that boiled up in Muriel’s face She kept her voice calm. “Thank you, Margaret.”

  She waited ten minutes before she rang Saluby, and now he began to shape himself in her mind like a black undertaker mocking the summer on the green lawn. She must keep her temper.

  “I’m told you rang.”

  His voice seemed to cut into her like a cold knife into pink flesh. “Yes.”

  “Was it necessary to keep on ringing?”

  “Well, you snapped down on me this morning, without letting me know if you were coming today.”

  “I told you I was not.”

  “Very well, I’ll keep on ringing.” My God, he was going to be difficult! “All right, I’ll come in.”

  Her hand shook in anger as she put down the telephone. She had not the least intention of making love to him any more, but it was better to go in and have it out instead of this telephone business between the village doctor and the squire’s wife. God, she was getting very sick of being the squire’s wife. The gong went for lunch.

  She went in and sat herself down in the long dining-room and said to Oxinham: “Oxinham, I’ll lunch in the veranda room in the future.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t sound the gong.”

  “Very well, madam.”

  “I like it better when you say madam, Oxinham, not ma’am.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  There was salmon for lunch, and Oxinham said: “Some iced grapefruit, madam?”

  Damn it, she wanted something to calm her.

  “Don’t you think some iced hock might be a little more interesting, Oxinham?”

  ‘“Certainly, madam.”

  She felt a great deal better after two glasses of hock and thought a third might be dangerous in this weather. She had coffee on the veranda, and watched the pigeons flouncing about their crinolines like can-can girls. She told Oxinham to order Blake to have the car at three o’clock for Dorminster and then went down for her after-lunch stroll toward the Wood Pool.

  NINETEEN

  When she went through the door of the close, Saluby was looking at a book, and his face was pale and fatigued with annoyance. He nearly forgot to rise when she came into the room.

  “Why on earth are you so late?”

  “I got delayed. I’m sorry.”

  “Damn it, I’ve got a case I must go back to.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve been here nearly two hours. I can’t stay long.”

  She sat down and asked him for a cigarette. “I only came in to talk.”

  “Oh.” He paused in anger. “Are you suddenly getting respectable, or have you got bored?”

  “Now, don’t make it awkward.” She paused. “It’s over, and the less we say, the better.”

  He got up and paced about the room. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t have the reasons?”

  “Because I don’t want to be forced into talking like a bitch.”

  He was losing his temper, she knew.

  “You sound fairly insulting as it is.”

  “Now I think I am going to go.”

  He swung about and caught her by the arm. “You are not.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?”

  He picked her up and took her into the room and put her down on the couch. He kissed her and found her mouth dead beneath his and swore. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. There’s not the slightest use in going on, because you can’t seduce me. If you want to make a fool of yourself, do so.”

  He slapped her face and whispered in anger: “You are a complete bitch.”

  “I told you there was nothing to say. You insist on making a fool of yourself and forcing me to be unpleasant.”

  He walked over and stood by the skeleton. “Look here, I’m not a fool, and I want to know why you suddenly feel this way.”

  “You mean you must have your post-mortem, although you know it won’t revive the corpse; Can’t you understand the simple fact that I no longer want to make love to you, and that I can’t help it. I came here hoping that you’d have enough sense to make it easy. We live in the same place, and there is no use in starting a quarrel.”

  “I see. It’s your husband?”

  She paused for a moment. “I very nearly said ‘Yes’ because it is an easy answer, but if I did, you would feel that it might start again. No, its not because I’m afraid of Nicholas, or being found out. It’s—simply that I know we never had any physical sympathy between us. There is no need to feel angry about it. It might have been you who found it out first, and I just would have accepted it.”

  “Physical sympathy be damned. It’s simply sex. You wanted it and I wanted it, and that’s all there is to it.” ‘Well, I didn’t enjoy it.”

  He flushed in anger. “You are lying.”

  “I am not.” She got up. “Now I am going.”

  “Not until I have the truth.”

  “I see. You will nag at it until you make me say something unpleasant.”

  “I don’t care a damn what you say.” He paused. “What the hell do you know about love-making anyway?”

  “Enough to know that you don’t know anything.” She paused. “There is not the slightest use in losing your temper. You simply will dissect everything into the bones.”

  “Good God, you talk like a sophisticated woman! And you’re as ignorant as hell.”

  “That is just abusive.” She paused. “Anyway, I am not quite so unsophisticated as when I began with you.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Well, after all, I’ve had the benefit of your coaching.”

  “Coaching! What a word. I should have known better than to waste myself on a damn woman who knows nothing.”

  She smarted. “Oh, don’t be silly. You’re about as much of a Casanova as that skeleton there. You’re just like a cricketer who has a lot of swagger and can’t make two not-out.”

  Her smile goaded him.

  “I suppose you think that�
��s witty. I think it’s just damned coarse.” He lost his temper finally. “Good God, I might as well have had an affair with the village barmaid!”

  She walked out and was not in the least sorry for him.

  TWENTY

  From a Chinese dreamland in the airless bedroom of the club, Nicholas woke on Tuesday morning and decided that he would not ask Sidonie if he might go tonight. After a tiring morning at the bank he returned to the club for lunch and disliked everything on the menu. He had a brandy and soda in the smoking room that was loaded with a smoldering air inside the lobby windows.

  Old Charndale spoke to him out of the solid tobacco fog that seemed to muffle voices and make tongues heavy as pendulums. “Might be able to help me, Bude. Got to get down to a place called Champton, in your county, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. About a dozen miles from me.”

  “Oh, good. Do you know anything about the trains down?”

  “Not much. Hardly ever go by train. Awful service.”

  “Oh, crikey! Thought I’d get some country air, but I don’t feel like stewing in a train. Mulluigheadly asked me down. Just taken a place there. Know him?”

  “Mewdly? No.”

  “It’s spelled like this...Oh, I’ve got a rhyme about it somewhere. Show it to you.”

  Charndale fumbled out an old flybook printed with rainbow flies, and somehow the fisherman’s wallet seemed a surprising thing to dig out of his drab black coat. Nicholas thought that perhaps when old Charndale snored in his leather chair he was asleep by some loch whose waters glinted and laughed below these brilliant flies. He had a feeling that old Charndale was opening a secret drawer when he searched the flybook for the rhyme. At last he found it, and Nicholas read:

  One of Chekhov’s Russians rolluigheadly