To the Dark Tower

by Francis King

  Sitting in her room, on that airless afternoon, she wrote frantically:

  MY OWN DEAREST ONE,—Two weeks have passed now since I sent you the last of my three letters, and still there is no answer. You are tired of all this; you would like to be rid of me; you do not wish to hear from me again. I know that you feel all these things without your saying them. And I only wish that I could satisfy you—that I could say"No more letters" and that were an end of it. But I must write. Perhaps I should go mad if I didn’t. It is as necessary to me as food and drink and sleep—no, more necessary, much more necessary.

  But I should be sorry to become a nuisance to you. I should be sorry if even my love were to prove a burden—a greater burden, perhaps, than the hostility of your enemies. I wish to act only as you would like me to act. But to cease to write these letters—Oh, no, no, no!

  As I turn all this over in my mind—over and over, in trains, at school, at night—it seems that there can be only one way out, and only one solution. Otherwise I shall always be a prisoner; I shall always burn in this flame. Take me—take me, I beg of you—even if it be for only one night. One night would be sufficient. After that annunciation, that seal on my faith, I think I should learn resignation and patience. I think. I should learn how to set aside all desire, complete in my love, in the consummation of my love. Without this seal, all life is meaningless. But with it—how full it then becomes. In your hands are the keys of the kingdom. Shall these dry bones live?

  … If you will have me once, then I shall not importune you again. You shall not hear from me again. One night will be sufficient. Is this so much to ask? Is my whole life, my salvation, worth less than just one night with you? I beg of you...

  She wrote much in the same vein until exhausted, she put the five sheets into an envelope and posted them at Earl’s Court post office. They were overweight, and the General, to his annoyance, had to pay one penny for them at the other end.

  Mark Croft had a violent temper. It was many months before the General discovered this. When he did he felt as one does when the young stranger sitting next to one in the theatre suddenly throws an epileptic fit. One feels that there should have been some sign. But the youth appeared quite normal; one suspected nothing.

  Cynthia, who wore the badges and read the literature of many societies, was agitating for Indian freedom. On Sunday she stood at Marble Arch with a placard" Free India Now" and a dozen copies of The Black Man’s Burden. On her right was a woman in a beltless mackintosh and a tam-o’-shanter whose placard proclaimed" The dead speak to us"; on her left was a cloth cap and the Matrimonial Post. She thought: I am being crucified in bad company. But then she blushed, feeling she had been irreverent. Many people stopped to stare at her, as one does at a model in a shop window; a few held out two coppers, the price of the pamphlet. An old woman passed and said" Disgraceful.""I beg your pardon?" But it appeared that she was referring to the Matrimonial Post.

  Later, Mark and the General came up to her and the General offered to buy a pamphlet.

  ‘‘Oh, no," she said, with a dry little laugh."I’ve no hopes of converting you. My pamphlets are scarce."

  ‘‘You might give me a chance."

  But she shook her head,"I only sell where I think there’s a chance of success. I don’t expect you to believe in Indian freedom."

  ‘‘Why not?"

  But before she could answer Mark had eased a copy out of her hand and handed it to the General." It’s never too late," he murmured pacifically, smiling. Cynthia scowled.

  They stood by her for several minutes during which the General, who was in high spirits, bought a copy of the Matrimonial Post and read the advertisements aloud to them." Single woman, C. of E., thirty-seven, simple tastes..." But suddenly he stopped short, thinking for no reason of Shirley Forsdike. He found himself pitying her.

  ‘‘Let’s move on," Mark said at last. Turning to Cynthia he queried:"You won’t mind if we leave you?"

  ‘‘Of course, not. I haven’t sold a single pamphlet while you’ve been with me. You don’t look serious enough. People think we’re having a joke."

  As they boarded their bus Mark happened to glance back over his shoulder."Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed."It looks as if there were going to be trouble." Cynthia was in conversation with a red-faced man in a bowler hat. There was a high-pitched, indignant torrent:"You young girls... Bolshie... traitors to your country... ought to be locked up..." The man had a mean little snout, eyes with long, white eyelashes, and a blue shirt against which he wore a tie whose spots were the size of billiard balls.

  ‘‘What’s the matter, darling?"

  ‘‘Nothing much, really. Just this creature being particularly offensive."

  ‘‘Offensive! Me offensive! Well—didn’t she call me a Blimp? Didn’t she—" He began to appeal to the beltless spiritualist who rubbed a damp nose on the back of her hand."Didn’t she—"

  ‘‘That’s enough," Mark cut in sharply."Just apologise to this lady. Or there’ll be trouble."

  ‘‘Apologise! Me apologise! I like that! You won’t catch me bloody well apologising. Ought to be locked up—"

  ‘‘Apologise!" Mark caught the man’s arm and thrust him towards Cynthia. But squirming, he evaded this grip and punched Mark timidly in the stomach."Let me go!" he squealed."Don’t you touch me!"

  But Mark, white with rage, advanced on him inexorably. Taking the rim of his bowler hat in either hand he began to force it downwards with successive jerks, until it touched the man’s nose. His ears stuck out, grotesquely crumpled. Then as the man floundered Mark caught the lapels of his check suit and hurled him against a lamp-post.

  Afterwards, he said to the General ashamedly:"I’m afraid I just saw red."

  ‘‘Do you often do that sort of thing?"

  ‘‘Far too often. I have an infernal temper. And when I lose it—well—anything may happen... Cynthia’s marvellous about it. I think she’ll probably cure me in the end."

  The General smiled sardonically.

  From the Diary of General Sir HUGH WEIGH

  May 8th 1938

  Frank Cauldwell is in town for the day. He tells me that he is looking for another job, and asks if I can meet him. I am afraid that he is just another drifter. The tutoring post I got for him with the Maccabaes should have suited him pretty well.

  Our rendezvous is outside Tottenham Court Road Underground station, at eleven o’clock. He is seeing some publishers there. Of course he is late, arriving breathless with a portfolio in his hand."Oh, I am sorry," he says." This really is awful of me. I must have kept you here for nearly twenty minutes. And now I can only spare half an hour. I’ve just been told of someone who wants a secretary: I’m going off to see him at twelve." I grunt my indignation.

  ‘‘Let’s go in here," he says, and without waiting for an answer disappears into a milk bar. I should have chosen a pub.

  We push our way to the far end, and both perch on stools covered with imitation leather. The counter is of smeared marble, flecked with pieces of egg from someone’s sandwich. In glass cases there are curling pieces of bread with mauve ham between them and shiny pork-pies. Frank gives the order and a nonchalant girl pulls at a lever from which gushes a frothy, bright pink concoction. She takes two straws, sticks them into the tumblers, and slaps them down before us. I suck gingerly; my front teeth ache.

  We talk for a while in the inconclusive, self-conscious fashion of people who know that they are being overheard. The waitress takes a cloth and swabs over the place before us, her head inclined. Then she says,"Excuse me," crossly, and Frank has to remove his portfolio. I notice that, for once, he is dressed in an almost dandified fashion—bow-tie, brown suède shoes, and so forth. I suppose that he has never had the money to dress well before. I remember him at Dartmouth in indescribably stained flannels, a Fair Isle sweater, and gym-shoes.

  Suddenly he opens the portfolio and takes out seven or eight typed sheets of paper."I wanted to show these to you. They’re from the novel." As he p
ushed them across his hand catches my glass and spills some of the sickly liquid on to them. This he mops up with a silk handkerchief. The sheets are now moist and pink in one corner.

  Feeling that he will want some critical opinion from me I try to concentrate on the illegibly dim typing. The passage is about a young girl in a hotel in France. But someone jolts me; and two women on my right are reciting to each other the names of most of the cinemas in Greater London with their current attractions. It is difficult.

  What disappoints me at first is the discovery that in these sheets I do not appear. So I was right! I am merely to be introduced for comic relief. I read through twice and then hand them back to him.

  ‘‘Well?" he queries.

  ‘‘I like it."

  ‘‘But you must say more than that. That doesn’t help me at all."

  ‘‘You know, Frank—it seems to me that you haven’t begun to discover people yet; you’ve only discovered their genital organs."

  Then, seeing the look of resentment on his face, I hurriedly add:"You mustn’t take that seriously. It was intended as a witticism rather than a criticism."

  I begin on a detailed but dull examination of his prose style.

  Judith, in tweeds, lay curled up beside the General, running the fingers of one unmanicured hand through his close-cropped hair.

  ‘‘Fibsy, darling?"

  ‘‘Yes?"

  ‘‘What would you say if Eric Anwood and I got engaged to each other?"

  The General started."Engaged! But don’t you think he ought to see me first? I mean—" He put a hand on her knee as though to restrain her.

  ‘‘Oh, don’t be so old-fashioned!" She laughed, not very satisfactorily."In any case, he hasn’t asked me yet... But he might."

  ‘‘Judith—promise me something. Don’t commit yourself until I’ve—"

  She pulled away angrily, pouting."Why must you be so mercenary? I know what you’re thinking. Eric’s only a lieutenant. He hasn’t any money. Hadn’t we better wait. Those sort of considerations don’t count if one is in love."

  ‘‘And you’re in love with Eric?"

  ‘‘You say it in such a contemptuous way. I know you don’t like him—"

  ‘‘I never said that"

  ‘‘Oh, yes, you did! That evening—you said he was horrible—and mean—"

  ‘‘Judith! You know I was only distressed because—"

  ‘‘Oh, don’t pretend. I’ve seen it all along. He’s not much of a catch—no money, no position. In any case I think you’d like me tied to you all my life. I don’t believe you want me to get married—to anyone."

  Conciliatory, he put an arm round her, but she wrenched herself tree."Please don’t treat me as if I were a child, to be cuddled and mauled about! Oh, don’t you see—Eric may be my only chance. I’m not the sort of girl whom people fall in love with easily. And he does love me—he loves me so very much." For the first time she was giving away to him her morbid fear of spinsterhood.

  ‘‘Well—that’s all right, then," he said, not without irony."That’s fine."

  He took up The Times once more. But a moment later the door slammed.

  At lunch, Judith came and kissed him and said she was sorry; and he took her on one knee and kissed her and said:"I just don’t want you to do anything rash." At the words she seemed to stiffen with resistance, but he went on:" I want nothing so much in the world as my little Pynx’s happiness." And again she embraced him:"Fibsy, darling. I’ve been horrid to Fibsy." Then they both sat down to veal cutlets.

  The scene was reminiscent of others with Lucy.

  S. N. G.’s chair had been set in the afternoon sunshine. But the sun had moved, the shadows had lengthened; and now he felt cold and a little querulous. He had called many times, but no one seemed to hear him; far away the maids giggled and rattled crockery, and cars pushed along the by-pass, and an errand-boy whistled. He drew his rug up to his chin, yawning. On his knees was the latest detective story by Agatha Christie and a leather knitting-bag. All that morning he had knitted; he was making a scarf for his nephew, and already it was so long that it dangled on the grass. But he did not like visitors to see him at this pastime. As soon as the bell rang he bundled it away and pretended to be reading. Hence the bag; hence the book.

  At the moment he was doing nothing. His scholarly face, the cheeks caving in and raddled, was turned to the orchard in front of him. The trees had been planted by his mother shortly before her death; but they had suffered a pest, a beetle with saw-like jaws, and had never grown. They should have been pulled up long ago, before they infected the apricot tree and the quince. But something prevented this step. Sentimentality, perhaps.

  On this lawn, he pondered, he had written The Effigy; here he had given tea to generations of undergraduates; it was here, too, that his mother had asked to be wheeled, dying, breathless in purple silk. But why here? The view was so much better on the other side of the house, where one could see the rose-garden, and the Downs, and the sea. Here there was nothing but a wall of brambles, and the curve of the by-pass, droning with cars.

  The house was one of the oldest in those parts. He could remember a time when the by-pass had been a lane, and instead of the vistas of bungalows there had only been the Hall and the church and some cottages. But the countryside was now ruled symmetrically by threads of concrete, pinioning it, holding it down. In the valley were the electric trains, bringing each evening bowler-hatted multitudes to"Chay-Noo","Dun-romin’ ","St. Leonards.” The Hall had become an anachronism.

  He meditated on all this, his white hair sticking up in astonished tufts, his hands crossed over his stomach. He remembered how, as a boy, he had leant out of his bedroom window, and the nightingales had sung ceaselessly for him from the bramble thickets. But the children and the lovers and the noise of cars had silenced them long ago. Only a few sparrows now splashed in the bird-bath that his mother had had erected.

  In this way he tended more and more to savour with wry satisfaction the deterioration which he saw about him. He was out of it, thank God. He had just escaped the lean years...

  ‘‘Hullo, S. N. You seem to be in a brown study." The General appeared round the house, followed by the patient Simpson, who had been gardener’s boy, chauffeur, and now sick-nurse.

  S. N. George smiled wanly:"Hullo!" Then he turned to Simpson:"Please move me into the sun. I’ve been calling for hours and hours."

  ‘‘Sorry, sir." Tenderly, he wheeled the chair out into the open."Anything else, sir?"

  ‘‘Get the General something to sit on."

  ‘‘And how’s the patient?"

  ‘‘The patient’s in excellent spirits. The patient has knitted over six inches." He pulled out the scarf."Look! How would you like to wear that round your neck."

  Simpson came out with a deck-chair."Shall I get the tea, sir?"

  ‘‘Oh, yes, yes. Good gracious, yes. It’s nearly five."

  The General sat down, taking the book from his friend’s lap."Agatha Christie! Well, I never expected you—"

  ‘‘Oh, yes. I read little else now... This is an extraordinary refreshing existence, you know. I mean, the whole cultural racket—the strain of being clever, of knowing the right people—the need, my dear, of keeping up—well, it all just vanishes. I sit here, and see nobody, and do exactly what I want."

  ‘‘I think it’s a pity."

  ‘‘Reading Agatha Christie?"

  ‘‘No—not only that. I think the whole thing is a pity. You seem to have made a sort of premature exit from the world."

  ‘‘Considering the circumstances, is that exactly kind? When one is crippled—"

  ‘‘Oh, yes. But I didn’t mean that. You seem to have rejected life—"

  ‘‘Life! Ah, that’s the word. It all depends on what you mean by life. For you life is bathing, and buccaneering, and writing newspaper articles. For me parties and lectures and week-ends in country houses. But there is something else, you know. One day you will have to discover it. Life isn�
�t simply doing. It’s also being... just to sit here, in the sun, while that wretched bird picks the buds off the peach tree—that has its importance also." The General was smiling, and he continued:"A truism, perhaps. You’re laughing at me. But when you, too, are old, and everything seems flat and rather worthless—then perhaps..."

  He did not complete his sentence.

  Simpson had dressed him for dinner; he always dressed when possible. He himself tied the tie, for this was one thing which Simpson could never do."Easier to buy it made-up," Simpson grumbled as he laced S. N. George’s shoes. Then he held up a mirror, after the fashion of hairdressers, and the invalid peered into it."Do I look very pale to-night, Simpson?""A bit off colour, sir. It’s that asparagus you ate." With relish they discussed the symptoms until the gong sounded.

  Seated at either end of the mahogany table course after course was brought them: but only the General ate with any appetite. S. N. G. had a prescribed diet; delicately, like a bird, he picked his way over boiled fish while Simpson stood behind him. From the cellar some excellent wines had been produced. When S. N. G. wasn’t eating he sipped at some hock and watched the General with grave eyes. They neither of them spoke much. The polished mahogany table held the reflection of S. N. G.’s aureole of white hair, the glitter of diamond cuff-links, and a steady glow from the lights. This mirrored effulgence burned up at them, making them seem somehow drab by comparison.

  After the meal S. N. G. was wheeled into the study, and Simpson was told he could go. The General was offered a fat Romeo and Julietta which at first he declined; but S. N. G. urged him:"Oh, do, my dear. I like to see you smoke."

  ‘‘Do you? Why?"

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  On the desk was an accumulation of unanswered correspondence, among which could be perceived the yellow of many telegrams. These were the congratulations sent by friends and admirers at the news of the success of the operation."An internal operation", The Times discreetly put it. On the wall was his mother, painted by Sargent in a blaze of emeralds: she had been young then, thin-lipped, ugly. But elsewhere there was a de László portrait of a lined but magnificent matriarch.