8
Monday
My darling,
I have found the dearest little cottage in Hampshire, it is quite cheap, and as pretty as you can imagine, with a garden filled with fruit trees, and a sheltering hedge. It might be cold in winter but we shan’t be there then. It has a bedroom for us, and another bedroom and a little room for Dodo, and a sitting room and a shed we could use as a shared studio. I will work on my cycle about Christian redemption, and you will produce many more landscapes, and perhaps a portrait of me – you’ve never done one, you know.
I’ve taken the house for six months and I am going there whether you come or not.
Imagine how happy we shall be. I shall hold you in my arms and smother you in kisses, while the branches beat against the windows on stormy nights. In the morning we will go out into our little Paradise, and eat freshly baked bread under the apple trees, naked if the sun is shining.
On consideration, it might be best if Dodo stayed with her grandmother some of the time, don’t you think? We need to get to know each other again completely.
I have sold a painting – hurrah, hurrah – that big one of Camden Market (£30). I know you have sold most of your drawings, I suppose you have a great deal of money. Obviously you know how to please the public. Thank you for sending me your reviews, I’ve not read them all, but the piece by Clive Bell was excellent. It sounds as though the critics are alarmed by your work, I think probably they find it too strong. English critics are so timid.
Love from Snake
9
5 August 1919
My dear wife,
You have been away from home – your home, mine, our child’s – since December. There is something keeping you away, something you are not telling me.
I intend to try to get permission to travel to England, I shall write to Mark. I shall stay as long as is needed. I am not threatening, I am only setting out the position. I need to know what is keeping you.
I have looked back at my letters to you. I think I have been too gentle. You know, when one’s country has been defeated, it destroys one’s self-confidence. But that does not mean I shall let you disappear from my life. You are my wife and the mother of my child, and I want us all to be together again.
Oh my Irene, is it because you see me as an enemy of your country, that you do not write? Do you hate me, because I am a German?
Write to me, Irene,
Thomas
10
Tuesday
Lovely one,
It’s only three days now till you come back, but that’s three days too long. Dearest, living with you is something I have dreamt of for years. Having you beside me all day, drawing you, sleeping with you night after night – it makes me feel human again, it makes me forget the horrors of this rotten country.
I think it might be best if Dodo stayed away. I love her because she is so like you, but I find it difficult when she talks about ‘Papa’. She’s better in London with her grandmother, don’t you think?
You might like to know, I have sketched out the Day of Judgment triptych, it will be very strong. I shall need a large studio to execute it, that is always my problem, I have such huge ideas but no large space to work in.
Love from Snake
11
18 August 1919
Dearest Irene,
What a bad girl you are, running away with that man. We talk about nothing else – Mamma is terrified of divorce and scandal, which is pretty ironic coming from her. One might want to run away, but shouldn’t one try to deal with one’s responsibilities by staying? Or are we really the people we were before the Great War? I hardly recognise the person I was in 1914, she seems like a child to me – but even so, would I run away from all my responsibilities, particularly my child, and that dear Thomas? I do feel you should go back to Germany. I think you’d be happy there now, and Dodo too. Anyway, I’ve written to Thomas to say he is always welcome at Evelyn Gardens. If you are skulking in Hampshire, I shall give him directions.
It’s lovely having Dodo here. I’d love to have children, but how do I find a man I like? The question is: is it better to marry someone not very interesting or attractive, or stay single in the hope someone better might turn up? Or have a friendship with a brisk chum who also lost her fiancé, cocoa in front of the fire, tweed skirts, long walks over the Downs. . . Oh dear oh dear.
It’s time for lunch. When you and Dodo aren’t here Mamma and I quarrel and she tells me I’m a monster and I tell her she’s a selfish old dragon, and I cry in my room and then at dinner we’re quite good friends. But the thought of spending twenty years here. . .
Anyway, you are a bad girl. And in the long run you and Julian would not be happy, you’ve grown out of him. He’s all hot air, but what does he achieve? Other than seduction, he’s good at that.
12
‘There’s a gentleman, for you, ma’am,’ Mrs Higgins announced importantly. ‘A tall gentleman.’
‘Oh?’ said Irene. No one called, ever. Irene was hardly in a state to receive callers. She was lying on the lawn in the hot sun, half-asleep, wondering whether to embark on another cycle of drawings, and how long she could reasonably stay in Hampshire this time. She was wearing a light summer dress with almost nothing underneath. As soon as Mrs Higgins left, she would take the dress off.
‘Did he give a name?’
‘No, I was to tell you he wishes to speak to you urgently. I showed him into the sitting room. I couldn’t leave him outside, he is a gentleman. Probably foreign, I would say, though he speaks very good English.’ Mrs Higgins scrutinised Irene. She came in twice a week and did some cleaning and trimmed the lamps. Though not good at cleaning, Mrs Higgins was expert at observing the cottage’s domestic arrangements, which Irene was sure – from the knowing looks she got in the village shop – were widely circulated. She tried to avoid curious stares, staying within the protective garden hedges or walking on the empty Downs. She was often alone since Julian sought inspiration on his own, though apparently not with much success: Redemption was not advancing. Visits to the pub revived his enthusiasm but not his progress.
Irene stood up. ‘I’ll come directly.’
She walked into the sitting room in her bare feet. Thomas was standing with his back to the door, looking out of the window. He did not hear her. He was holding a travelling bag, which he’d bought for their honeymoon. He clutched his coat, as though he did not care to put anything down. His shoulders were hunched, his clothes, once faultless, were shabby. He looked very thin.
She felt oddly abstracted, as though watching a play in which she was a character.
‘Thomas.’
He turned. They stood still, considered one another. She thought, he looks tired, and anxious, and older. She felt protective, in a way she remembered from another world. He thought, she is in blooming health, her dress hardly conceals the contours of her body, her face is brown and unlined. With a jolt, he recognised she looked much better now than she ever had during the war.
‘I had to come.’ Then, ‘I don’t need to stay very long.’ He looked enormously sad. She merely noted this. She was determined not to feel sorry for him.
The door burst open. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, madam?’ asked Mrs Higgins. She had become suddenly rather gracious in her manner.
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Irene.
Thomas raised his hand. ‘Actually. . .’
‘Oh, would you? How thoughtless of me.’ It was a relief, playing the hostess. ‘And perhaps a biscuit? There are some biscuits, aren’t there, Mrs Higgins?’
‘Yes, there are a few digestives, but no chocolate biscuits.’
Mrs Higgins said this severely, as though the lack of biscuits was reprehensible. Both Irene and Thomas very faintly smiled.
‘Shall I put out three cups and saucers?’
‘Two will be enough.’
Mrs Higgins went out. ‘We have some coffee, but Mrs Higgins doesn’t really know how to make it.’
‘We still don’t have real coffee in Germany.’ He stood immobile but uneasy, like a man waiting for a train.
‘Won’t you sit down? Won’t you put down your things?’
‘I’d rather not.’ He gripped his hat and bag tightly. She looked out of the window and wondered how she might feel about leaving this beautiful countryside.
‘Did you have a good journey?’ She felt again that she was saying someone else’s lines.
‘No. It was painful, and very slow. The French officials and the British officials inspected my papers over and over again, they were not friendly.’
There was another silence.
‘I’m not planning to stay long. I walked from the station, I can catch the train at 12.41 hours. I have my return ticket.’
He thought, I am despised in this country because I am a German, and in this house because I am me. He could not prevent himself from assessing the room. It was mean and small, with a ceiling that bulged downwards, and rackety old furniture. Irene – it must have been Irene – had arranged some flowers in a green vase, and there was a small pile of books, and leaning against them, a landscape painting. It was sensitive and bold, it must be hers. He felt violently jealous.
‘Oh, but you must have some lunch.’
He threw down his hat and coat, turning towards her as though squaring up for a fight. ‘Lunch? What has lunch to do with anything? We are in one of the most difficult situations any couple can find themselves in. You have left me, that is what I understand from your sister, who received me most kindly, as did your mother, like people with hearts. They are honest with me, they tell me you are living with your lover. In this situation, I am not interested in lunch. I do not want to eat your food and discuss the weather. You are unfaithful, you are humiliating me, we might be speaking about divorce, and you offer me lunch.’ He made a noise like a sob. ‘In spite of all, I want you. I want you to come back to me. I want you to be my darling wife again.’
She stood immobile. ‘Oh, Thomas,’ she said. Oh, Berlin, she thought. Berlin, grey and cold in the winter dusk, the endless snow, trams clanking along long, hard streets.
‘Why have you stopped writing to me? Every morning I am running to find a letter from you, but after the first month, they never come.’
‘I’m very sorry. It was so hard to write. . .’
The cold and the hunger and the turnips and the women wreathing roses round the bayonets, it all ran before her again like a dirty frieze.
‘What can I say? I am angered with you for not writing, that Dodo has stayed in this house with this man, for your unfaithfulness. But in the end, I can only say these words. I love you, Irene, I always have, I always will. I forgive everything, if only you will come back.’
Back to the Lehrter Bahnhof and the noise and the vulgarity and the honour of Prussia and the over-arching importance of duty and – oh God – the iron necklace, the necklace she thought she’d buried.
In came Mrs Higgins, clinking. ‘I found some fresh biscuits, Mr Julian must have bought them in the village, madam,’ she remarked, busily putting down her tray and examining Thomas like a searchlight. ‘You and the gentleman must be old friends,’ she proffered.
‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘Thank you, that will be all.’
Mrs Higgins tossed her head and marched out. Thomas was about to speak when Irene raised her hand and went to the door. Outside, Mrs Higgins was crouching.
Thomas had sat down. ‘The customs officials wanted to know the purpose of my journey. What was I to say? That I had come to find my wife, who had run away?’ He pressed his hand against his eyes. ‘Forgive me. Coming to England is so disturbing.’
‘I know how you like your tea.’ She went over to him with the cup. She extended her hand as though to soothe his forehead, drew it back.
‘Thank you. A nice cup of tea, that is always the answer, is it not?’ He stood up abruptly and the table fell over, throwing the tea onto the floor. ‘I am not going to plead with you. If you do not choose to come back, then I will return to Germany, and you can live with this man. We can divorce, if you wish. But you must decide now.’
‘Now?’
‘Now. You have had long enough to think about it all. I wait no longer.’ She felt a curious sense of relief, even though she still hardly knew what she was going to do. ‘Not even five minutes?’
‘One night, yes. I will stay in the village, I see there is an inn there. Tomorrow either you come to the inn before ten o’clock, and we go back to London together, or you stay here. In that case we will never meet again. It is your choice.’
She sat with folded hands, looking out of the window. He thought, she is so beautiful, with that quality of repose. Or is it, perhaps, self-absorption?
‘I should warn you, I have very little work or money, we could not live as we used to, and there is little food to be had in Berlin. It will not be comfortable.’
‘I wouldn’t care about that, as long as Dodo had proper food.’
‘Things will improve. The future is exciting, we have the chance to make a new society.’ He quietened down, as though soothed by her company. ‘I would be so happy. I realise how difficult I have often been, I will try to be less selfish.’
‘You never were selfish.’
There was a little silver clock in the sitting room, which she had brought down to help furnish the quite horrid cottage, as it now seemed to her. It chose this moment to strike the hour.
‘Twelve,’ he said. ‘I gave you that clock, no? We chose it in Leipzig. If you want to say no, I will have the time to catch the 12.41.’
‘No, no, I don’t want you to catch the 12.41. I mean. . . I don’t know what I mean.’
The door opened tentatively. It was Julian, hot, in his walking boots, wearing an open shirt. He had no doubt been to the pub.
What a dramatic moment it would have been, Irene thought, if he and Thomas had met on the road. Or would they have behaved in a perfectly gentlemanly way, and just nodded?
‘Ah,’ said Julian. ‘An unexpected visitor. Am I interrupting you?’ He held out his hand to Thomas. Thomas stared at it. ‘Actually, I met Mrs H on the road, she told me a foreign gentleman had called and was having an important conversation with you. What can we do for you, Dr Curtius? Have you come to lunch? Lunch here is a bit primitive, but we probably have some pork pie.’ He looked at the broken cup on the floor. ‘I see you don’t like our tea.’
The three stood motionless. The men looked at Irene. She eyed the little clock as though it might offer an answer. She wondered whether they would hit each other. But there was only silence.
‘So, my darling, are you going back to your husband?’ said Julian. He spoke as though it were settled. She was surprised, he spoke tenderly.
‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ She thought, that sounds so feeble, but it’s true. Why couldn’t Racine have written her lines?
‘I know you too well, Irene,’ said Julian. ‘I’m sure you’ll be going back to Berlin. Sense of duty, duty to your child, husband, all of that. . .’ He looked at Thomas. ‘You look done in, old chap. What you need is a drink. There’s lots of that here, whatever the other deficiencies. I knew you’d go back to him one day. It won’t do, will it?’ And he gestured vaguely at the room.
She looked at him, dumbfounded.
‘I expect you both want to go now, but I can’t have you leaving the house as though we were enemies. Irene, I shall never see you again, probably. Nor you, Herr Doctor Curtius, or shall I call you Thomas – we are artists here, we are quite free and easy. So why don’t we sit down together – first and last time – and drink a toast to friendship, and love, and whatever. . . Friendship between England and Germany, that sort of thing. . . You make better speeches than I do, Thomas. Oh God, I do love her, but so do you, I can see that.’ All the colour had gone from Julian’s cheeks, his hands shook as he found glasses and a bottle. He poured out whisky for each of them. They each took a glass but only Julian drank anything
. None of them spoke.
13
They are sitting on the sofa. Outside they can see the white mass of the apple blossom, tinted pale orange by the street lamps.
They are silent. Dorothea reads a letter, hands it to Pandora without comment; then another. Pandora reads intently.
After a while Dorothea sits back. She is allowing Pandora to read these letters, she says, because she trusts her. But she does not want anyone else to read them. Why should they know about these private emotions? She does not want the world to gloat over her parents’ inner lives.
Pandora has changed lately. Her clothes have become dark, discreetly elegant. She is to be interviewed shortly for a job on a national paper.
‘Yours is an admirable point of view,’ she says. ‘But I don’t think it’s realistic. When Michael Holroyd published his life of Lytton Strachey a year or two ago it changed everything: biography is not the same any more. Now people want to know everything about the subject, and it’s because we realise that sexuality is central to people’s personalities. It can’t be concealed.’
‘But do we need fully to understand the person, to delve into all their secrets?’ As though unconsciously, her mother closes her hands over the papers in her lap. ‘Can’t we let people rest in peace?’
The Iron Necklace Page 25