To the Dark Tower

by Francis King

  But she couldn’t do it; instead of despising she began to envy them. They all seemed so self-possessed; even the sad, elderly man seemed to know his destination. While she... She belched. The beer was going to her head. In a stupor she sat for a long time, turning and turning her glass, while the dusty curtains seemed to close in like an impenetrable wall, and a young man with a bracelet on his wrist crossed and recrossed her vision, and the tears began to prick at the corner of her eyes. She felt slightly sick, and empty. But she could not go out and eat; she had not the will. The atmosphere of smoke and talk thickened; the man who was reading Hölderlin suddenly snapped the book shut and began to squeeze one of his pimples into a black-and-white check handkerchief; a girl went round with a tray and collected glasses. There were many voices, many faces, and yet she was lonely.

  But her loneliness was changing, imperceptibly, even as she thought how lonely she was. For no reason she was becoming curiously excited. Perhaps it was only the effect of the alcohol, but she had the feeling that she was waiting here for something decisive to happen. It seemed as if all life had been a preparation, a fumbling; but now the key would turn, the door would open, there would be singing; the dove would break the turgid air; the curtain would put on leaves. Now, soon: the hour was moving to its climax; and all things would be transfigured; and all things would be new.

  This sensation of inexorable climax was too much. She could not sit here and wait: she must go out. As she walked to the door she tripped over the feet of the young man with Hölderlin; but she did not notice it, and he only scowled. Out in the street, in the violet twilight, she stood, swaying a little; and far away there scurried a furtive chime of bells; and again bells chimed, nearer, with broad-shouldered chords; and she thought:"Now, now."

  On the other side of the street a man in uniform came from under the awning of a restaurant and walked away, his back to her. Dizzily she ran forward, the tears trickling down her cheeks; she made no attempt to staunch them. The clock in the hollow tower had struck. It was General Weigh, she was certain of it.

  She clutched at his sleeve with:" Oh, stop. Oh, please stop. I had to..." But a young lieutenant was staring at her with a pink, clean-shaven face on which were stuck two shreds of cotton-wool where he had cut himself. He was very drunk."All right," he said thickly."All right." She tried to break away, but he caught her against the wall, his knee stuck grotesquely between her legs, pinioning her. She screamed, high and clear, and struck out at him; struggling, her hat fell off."Let me go! Let me go!" But already he had taken fright; she was free.

  People were collecting. She pushed her way through them and began to run, on, on, till she reached Green Park, and then Hyde Park, and at last Kensington Gardens. At Kensington Gardens she was sick outside the gates; she could not get in.

  So again she found herself climbing the stairs, as she had climbed them once before that evening; but fortunately this time neither Captain Timpson nor any other of the residents passed her. Coming to her room she once more stretched on the bed and closed her eyes, and thought: How long? How long? It seemed then as if she only were doomed; as if she only were that wanderer between two worlds, the one dead, the other powerless to be born. She saw herself as an ambitious phantom, moving restlessly between the ranks of the living. What was the miracle that would give her life? What was the oblation, the ritual.

  She thought: Why did I scream then? Why did I run away? If only she knew what she wanted! If she knew that, she might be able to achieve it. But she wandered through dark corridors; she climbed interminable stairs; and there was nothing but the darkness, the endless journeying. Oh, would she never reach the high wonderful room, into which pouted sunlight and bird-song? Oh, would she never ascend the hollow tower? The dusty, velvet curtains dulled all sounds; they closed impenetrably; and the sediment in her glass left a sour taste in the mouth; and though she talked, they did not talk to her; and the violet twilight was meaningless.

  She thought: I must be dreaming. Images had crowded into her brain and she could not understand them. One hand pressed to the wall she dragged herself from the bed, feeling dizzy and hungry and sick with fatigue. She went to the chest of drawers and took out a square tin with a Scottie painted on top of it; inside were damp, crumbling shortbread biscuits which she gnawed voraciously. In the room opposite there was a light on, and shadows against the blinds. How intolerable those shadows seemed. They hinted, but would not reveal; they eluded; they belonged to a world not hers. Far away there was the mournful jingle of a fire-engine; elsewhere, a house was burning, men were hurrying to it. And the electric trains... They made a lurid lightning, a laceration on the sky’s cheek; and within each carriage, like microbes in a test-tube, were set the living generations... But she sat in a high, unlighted room, her eyes fixed on the stain where she had crushed a moth against the wall.

  Her fingers groped for the light-switch; she sat down at the table, pulled out a sheet of paper, and took up her pen."My dearest," she wrote." My own dearest one. If you do not answer this..."

  Everything was forgotten now, even the ache and smart of her loneliness. Tears splashed on to her white hands. She was performing the only ritual that she could perform; she was making the only obeisance possible to her.

  The General sat alone. The bow-windows were open on the spring night; the curtains flapped noisily. Beside him was a table on which were a number of books, a reading-lamp, and a watch. One o’clock. Far away a clock sprinkled the hour. He looked up for a moment from his work, frowned, and then continued.

  He was wearing a dressing-gown of camel hair, striped pyjamas, and thick woollen socks. The close-cropped head was bent over Strabo.

  Suddenly, there was the sound of a key turning in the front door. He hurried to his feet, crossed the room, and turned on a light in the hall."Judith!" he called.

  But already she was hurrying up the stairs, her taffeta skirt raised in one hand. She did not answer." Judith!" he called again."I’ll make some tea. Hi, Judith!" Then, for the first time, he noticed the mud-stains on the carpet—thick cakes of mud. Her door slammed.

  Again he frowned, at a loss what to do. Going back to the study he picked up Strabo and then put it down. He seemed to be listening for something; but no sound came except the gusty flapping of the curtain and the drip-drip of the rain-water butt outside. Later, he climbed the stairs and knocked on her door."Judith! Judith, old girl! May I come in?"

  At the silence he reflected a moment, his hands deep in his dressing-gown pockets. Then he turned the handle. Judith lay, still dressed, on her bed, with Lucy’s old doll, Hetty of the shoe-button eyes, clasped against her. She was weeping; her gold shoes were covered in mud. She resembled Lucy hardly at all, at that or at any time. Big-boned like her father, she had a brown tomboy face and hands that were strong and competent, with nails clipped close in a horizontal line. Lucy had ridden to hounds, side-saddle; Judith had captained the lacrosse team. Both might have been created for these activities, and for these alone. Impossible to forget Lucy, graceful, arrogant on a grey mare; impossible, too, to forget Judith as she yelled,"Come on, St. Jocelyn’s", and flicked with sinewy wrist the ball towards the goal.

  As the General came in she turned away with a sort of gasp and buried her face in the pillow. The taffeta, stretched un-prettily tight, showed the cleft of her buttocks. He went up to her and turned her towards him, easing her round until her eyes flickered at the light and gleamed with the tears she had shed."What is it?" he asked."What’s the matter? Didn’t you have a good time?" Stubbornly she did not answer, and he continued:"Why are your shoes so dirty? Did you have to walk home?"

  She nodded.

  ‘‘But why?"

  ‘‘Part of the way. From the Long Road."

  ‘‘But why? Why?"

  ‘‘Oh, don’t go on asking me why!" She pulled away from him, once more weeping uncontrollably.

  ‘‘Did Eric Anwood bring you home?"

  A muffled"Yes."

  ‘‘I see. A
nd did you quarrel? Was that it?" Eric Anwood was the naval cadet, now a lieutenant, whom they had met bathing.

  ‘‘Oh, do leave me alone! Oh, please leave me alone!" Goodness knows what eighty-odd girls at St. Jocelyn’s would have thought of their former school captain at that moment. Choking, staunching her tears with her fists, she repeated:" Oh-leave-me-alone!" on a gradual descent of the scale.

  ‘‘But, my dear Judith—naturally..." Then, meeting with no response, he took a more vehement attitude."If that little beggar has made you miserable—or been fooling around—I’ll wring his neck. Horrible, conceited—"

  ‘‘Oh, no, no! It’s not his fault. Oh, please go away. You don’t understand. I didn’t expect you to. Oh, leave me!"

  ‘‘But, Judith—" he protested.

  She cut in:"Go away! Can’t you see I want to be left alone? Why must you always ask so many questions? Something must be private—"

  Already he had gone. I’ve spoiled her, he thought, as so many parents think when their children behave unsatisfactorily. I’ve spoiled her.

  Judith, meanwhile, clutched Hetty and howled, amidst tennis rackets, pictures of dogs, and gym-shoes. On her bedside table lay A Hundred Things that a Modern Girl should know.

  Mark Croft and the General had been together to one of those ‘little’ revues at which the mention of either Beverly Nichols or Godfrey Wynn is sufficient to send the audience into derisive peals of laughter. They had been bored, as one is bored when one finds oneself, a stranger, among a party of old friends. Now they walked together across Hampstead Heath to Mark’s flat, where the General had been asked to spend the night.

  They moved briskly, the General striding as he always did, his chin raised with a touch of arrogance. Mark Croft was less set, less disciplined; he tended to move aside erratically to kick a stone, or examine a tree, or pat a dog. The General did none of these things. They did not talk; they knew each other sufficiently well not to; but sometimes the General whistled a Mozart aria and Mark Croft joined in. Then, a little later, the older man began to hum a tune from Trial by jury; long, long ago, out in India, he and Lucy had sung in it, in the chorus. But Mark said:" Oh, don’t!"

  ‘‘Don’t you like Gilbert and Sullivan?"

  ‘‘Gilbert, yes. Sullivan, no."

  The General bridled."I’m afraid I’m not very quick to follow the fashions in these things." But Mark Croft did not intend to argue with him. They walked on in silence.

  Once in the flat the General said:"How are the plans going?" They were drinking whisky and soda before a wood-fire. Mark’s face was pleasantly flushed with the heat.

  ‘‘Oh—shaping well. I’ll show you." From the desk he took a map which had disintegrated into four separate parts and had then been stuck together with transparent paper. A pencil in his hand he leant over the General:"We sail up here—the waters are just navigable..." He began to describe the itinerary.

  As he spoke the General felt a sudden shock of excitement, as though they were, at this very moment, embarking on the Amazon for some perilous destination. He related this sensation partly to Mark’s imaginative description and partly—he could not understand why—to the clean, almost fussy, smell of carbolic soap that exuded from his presence. His skin was pink and healthy; as he bent forward a small white bone appeared at the back of his neck.

  Suddenly the General said:" You know—I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. May I come with you?"

  The pencil stopped short. Mark stared at him, as though in incredulity."To the Amazon?"

  ‘‘Yes."

  ‘‘My plans are very sketchy as yet. I haven’t thought about a party. Of course, I should be only too pleased... It’ll be hard going, you know."

  ‘‘I’m used to that."

  It sounded like a rebuke."Oh, yes, I know. I didn’t mean that you wouldn’t be equal to it—"

  The General cut in:"You young fellows always imagine that we’re fogeys. We’re not. My grandfather rode to hounds when he was over eighty... Think about it, anyway. And let me know."

  ‘‘Another drink?" Mark switched the conversation without much deftness.

  ‘‘Thanks." The General watched him as he took the glass, and began to pour whisky into it from a Victorian decanter. A lock of hair fell across his forehead, which he brushed back with a gesture of impatience. His hand was steady.

  A moment later there was the sound of a key in the front door and Cynthia came in. She hesitated when she saw the General, with a subdued" Oh!" of surprise. Then she smiled bleakly and held out a hand on which gleamed an opal, her engagement ring."I didn’t expect to see you. Mark never told me—"

  ‘‘The General is staying the night."

  ‘‘Oh, yes." She sat down on the arm of a chair. She wore a dark-green skirt of some soft woollen material and a purple jumper. Strange that a tranquil, dreamily idealistic girl who believed in the perfectability of mankind should yet feel this hostility towards someone who had never done her an injury. She herself could not explain it; and it worried her. It was not simply that she was a pacifist, for many of her friends had headstrong and violent characters. The antagonism was more fundamental than any difference of opinion. When she was with this man she wanted to score off him at any cost; and because she disliked scoring off anybody she contrived to be with him as little as possible. Even now one cutting remark after another came into her head and had to be suppressed: until, unable to endure it longer, she said:"I think I’d like some tea. Would anyone else?"

  ‘‘We’re quite happy with our whisky, thank you. Shall I get it?" Mark rose to his feet.

  ‘‘Oh, no, no. Don’t be absurd." As she went out she had to restrain herself from slamming the door.

  Suddenly the General leant forward and said:"Tell me, Mark: are you and Cynthia living together?" He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘‘Since you ask—yes."

  ‘‘I hope you don’t mind the question. I feel that I know you well enough... To tell you the truth, I’d already guessed—"

  ‘‘You’d—guessed?" He stared at him, flushing.

  ‘‘Didn’t you want anyone to know? It seemed rather obvious to me. I’m sorry... I suppose Cynthia is already married—"

  ‘‘No."

  ‘‘Then you—"

  ‘‘Neither of us have any—commitments." He spoke with abrupt coldness."As for your knowing—Cynthia certainly won’t mind. You see, she doesn’t believe in just rushing into marriage without a trial."

  The General interposed:" But you do?"

  ‘‘I don’t think an unmarried relationship can ever be really satisfactory." He was becoming a little pompous as he kicked at the fire-dogs."If I had had my way we should have been married six months ago. But, of course, I respect her principles. She’s terribly idealistic. We’re going to give it a trial for a year."

  ‘‘And you’d like it to be a secret?"

  ‘‘Y-yes. I don’t exactly want it shouted from the house-tops. Of course Cynthia’s very proud of it, and says there’s nothing to hide. I admire that. But it’s an attitude which I simply can’t share. Perhaps I’m inherently conventional... Not that I haven’t told all my closest friends. I have. But with acquaintances—"

  The General winced at this not too tactful suggestion that his relationship with Croft might be anything less than intimate." Did you imagine I should be shocked?" he asked.

  ‘‘Frankly—yes."

  ‘‘But why?"

  ‘‘Oh, your generation—"

  ‘‘My generation is a good deal less prudish than yours. Good heavens—of course, it doesn’t shock me." He was being unconvincingly emancipated."What do you take me for? My own wife and I..." But he found it impossible to talk of that day when he and Lucy had found themselves alone in the clearing in the jungle and Lucy had thrown her arms about him. He went to the sideboard and poured himself another drink.

  Later, Cynthia came in with a tray, and they sat, making forced conversation. She herself said little, but remained curled up i
n an armchair while she sipped tea from a china beaker. Then, when she had finished:"I must go," she said,"or I’ll miss that last train. Good-night, General."

  ‘‘Good-night."

  ‘‘Good-night, darling."

  ‘‘I’ll see you out."

  ‘‘No, don’t bother." They kissed, almost ashamedly, and she left them. The General watched Mark, expecting that this was all a show and that she was going to spend the night with him. But a moment later the front door slammed and feet descended.

  He was glad.

  Mohtherlant’s Pitié pour les Femmes first gave Shirley the idea. As she wrote in one of her letters to the General, her mother had lent it to her, and she had been struck by the similarity between the love which three women bear for the libertine, Costals, and her own devotion to someone who seemed so much more worthy.

  She had read in that book of how Andrée Haquebaut, the little provincial, offers herself to Costals for a week, a night even; the happiness of such an encounter will be sufficient for a lifetime. At first Shirley had dismissed the notion as ‘improbable’, ‘untrue to life’, as so many people dismiss what they cannot see themselves experiencing. But the seed was to germinate.

  She had sat down in a cinema, with her shoes off, while next to her two lovers huddled together, and on the screen two other, gigantic lovers met in a less ungainly embrace. The girl on her right was stiff as though with some intolerable ache, her eyes staring moonily; while the sinuously voluptuous lady, balanced above the craning necks in the ‘ninepennies’, seemed almost nonchalant. Somehow, the conjunction of these two beatitudes, the shadow and the substance, made her feel sick and empty. It was then that she decided on a last desperate step; propriety and pride and self-respect were to be forgotten.