Guilty: The Lost Classic Novel

by Kavan, Anna

  ‘You remember I said it was the worst possible news?’

  The emphasis, the heavy significance, of this was unmistakable. But though some part of me seemed to understand it, my muddled brain couldn’t find the meaning, or didn’t want to. However, I was to be given no choice in the matter; I was to be forced to understand, whether I liked it or not. I felt I was being driven into a trap but could only resign myself to the insistence of my companion’s will by asking, ‘What else has happened?’

  ‘He was not alone.’

  No doubt this was kindly meant, an attempt to break it gently. But in my bewildered state I was completely baffled by the words ‘not alone’, which conveyed nothing to me. Perhaps my slowness roused Mr Spector’s impatience, or perhaps he decided it would be kinder to tell me the worst at once. At all events, he went on, ‘Your mother was with him. She complained of having been left alone in the country for so many years and said she wanted a little gaiety for a change. So your father took rooms at a hotel for a few days. They must have been on their way to a theatre …’

  The low flat voice, a sign, though I didn’t know it, of the speaker’s profound emotion, ceased rather abruptly. I took no notice of it, still half dazed and surprised by this last item of news. Had she, too, been hurt? I asked, not realizing the absurdity of the question, though something unnatural about his muted assent began to sound the alarm. ‘Not … ?’

  Those younger than ourselves must find it hard to understand, with their direct approach to death, the taboos with which we hedged it round, not yet able to accept it as a commonplace of our lives. It wasn’t emotion that inhibited me from speaking the word ‘killed’ but the feeling that it sounded melodramatic, sensational, incompatible with everyday matters, almost in bad taste. But Mr Spector, whose intellectual equipment was far in advance of mine, felt no such inhibition and said with a direct simplicity that ought to have braced me, ‘They both died instantaneously.’

  I tried in vain to assimilate this, revolving the words in my mind. No, it was no good. I couldn’t take it in. Silently, with the distant vagueness of a patient coming out of an anaesthetic, I watched him switch on a small light in front of us, producing from somewhere a paper parcel, which he proceeded to unwrap, saying as he did so, ‘I’m sorry about this, Mark. I hate to distress you. But no one else can give the identification the authorities need.’

  Without in the least understanding what he meant, I felt a far-off tremor of warning, gazing blankly at the oddly shaped object he held out for my inspection. The queer-looking incomplete thing, with its charred irregular edges and tapered projection, seemed faintly reminiscent of something I couldn’t recall. I told him I didn’t know what it was, wishing he’d put it away. As the seconds passed, I was developing an unreasonable aversion towards the nameless fragment, more particularly to its smell; for it gave off a peculiar odour I’d never before encountered – an acrid chemical smell, mixed with the smell of old burnt material and something bitter, heavy, oppressive, which I couldn’t place and which yet seemed familiar. This composite odour was strangely penetrating, clinging and disagreeable, pervading the whole interior of the car; I felt it would hang about me for days if I touched the thing. Nevertheless, I was obliged to overcome my reluctance and take it into my hand, since it was held out inescapably. Still I could make nothing of it. I noticed the charring wasn’t new; it seemed unnatural for the smell to cling so persistently. Vaguely turning it over, I discovered some rubbed gilt lettering, blackened and blurred at one end to illegibility but with the initial F still visible and guessed rather than saw an R and a G, puzzling over some lost association.

  Then suddenly it came back. The shoes, neatly paired in their boxes, were strewn around us, prettily cuddled up side by side in their tissue beds. My mother’s foot on the stool looked naked and unprotected in the thin stocking, till the assistant fitted on the soft elegant suede, smoothing it tenderly around the ankle. ‘Ferragamo. I always wanted a pair. But they’re so expensive. Do you think I’m terribly extravagant, Marko?’

  The shoe shop faded. I was left with a sinking premonition of similar visions to come, remembered incidents of no importance, trifles, perhaps irritating at the time but, in retrospect, of an unbearable pathos. Still I could think of no appropriate words but, as I had to say something, said stupidly, ‘They were her best shoes’, and, to my own astonishment, burst into tears as if I’d been six years old.

  I suppose Mr Spector took the remains of the shoe away from me then, for I remember hiding my face in my hands and being unable to find my handkerchief; he was very patient and kind, pushing his own into my fingers and letting me cry on his shoulder. And I remember how, momentarily, I seemed to recapture the heavenly peace of some remote childish occasion when I’d rested against him in this same way and lost it again at once, like a face seen from a fast-moving car.

  I didn’t feel anything much about my parents. I didn’t even know why I was crying and felt ashamed of my tears, but I couldn’t control them – they simply went on and on, for no reason. When they finally stopped, and I sat up, blowing my nose, I couldn’t look at the man beside me, who said kindly, ‘I’m afraid I have to go back now. Is there anything you want to ask me first?’

  I felt I ought to ask questions about how my parents had died. But the only thing I wanted to know was whether this fragment of shoe was all they’d found of my mother – as he’d suggested by his words about identification – and this I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I wondered if he’d be shocked by my selfishness when I said, ‘Shall I have to leave now?’ After all, I had to know what was going to happen to me.

  The question seemed to surprise him. He told me that I must, of course, stay on and take the final examination, and we would see then what was to be done. ‘And now I really must get back to my work.’ After this broad hint, I said a hurried goodbye and got out of the car quickly, for something in his voice pierced my self-absorption, conveying an impression of the quite extraordinary importance of this work, the exact nature of which had never been revealed to me.

  It had become quite dark. There was a moon, but only dim, intermittent gleams penetrated the heavy cloud. When the headlights came on I stepped back quickly out of their searchlight beams, surprised to see one of the soldiers getting into the back seat – had he been watching us all the time? The car swung slowly around and swayed out of the yard, bumping over the hollows, and I followed it but then turned the opposite way, not wanting to meet anyone, not wanting to go indoors. And I remember stumbling about aimlessly for a while, feeling sorry for myself, till I walked into a bush, which scratched my face and hands viciously.

  The thorny scratch coming as a sharp reminder, I suddenly realized how I’d taken it for granted that Mr Spector would look after me, though he was under no sort of obligation to do so and obviously overloaded already with heavy responsibilities. It had seemed to me such a matter of course that I hadn’t even thanked him. All my feelings of inferiority revived at this instance of my own graceless behaviour. No wonder people disliked and distrusted me; how could I ever have believed anything different? Even the death of my parents meant nothing to me, I thought, trying to evoke the scene before my imagination but defeated at the start by not knowing how they had looked. True, I knew my mother had been wearing her best shoes, but I couldn’t remember her dresses well enough to know which she would wear to the theatre – most likely she’d bought a new one for the occasion, and this I couldn’t possibly imagine. As for my father, I didn’t get as far as trying to picture him, before the moon escaped abruptly through a ragged hole in the clouds, as though it had gnawed its way out.

  In its pallid light, I saw that I’d wandered back unknowingly to the school buildings; I watched them glide, stealthy black masses, into the lighter space where just now only the night had been. For an instant then the horrors of all my childish nightmares were thick about me: tall spectres, petrified in innumerable malign mutations; and one calamitous shape towering above them all
, as hideously unnatural as a child’s control of a father’s fate.

  If I hadn’t opposed his wish, he and my mother would be alive now. So I’d killed him – killed them both. The thought I’d unconsciously been repressing since I’d heard the news at last thrust itself forward. Now the moon dimmed again, the phantoms blurred and were reabsorbed into darkness, stuff of darkness themselves. I repeated to myself, ‘I’ve killed them both’; and the words ‘So what?’ followed closely enough to deprive the thought of all reality. I would keep it that way, unreal; my instant decision reduced the fact to the region of childish fantasy. Turning my back on the invisible chessmen, I cautiously moved away, my hands outstretched like a blind man’s before my face, my fingers touching now close-clipped leaves, now the unevenness of old brickwork, now the cooler, smooth face of stone.

  I was approaching Jaggers’s house, when the picture I’d failed to create formed of its own volition; my mind’s eye saw a city street, traffic and many people, everything shifting, confused, where my parents walked side by side among all the rest, unprotected and unsuspecting. To my callow youth, the pair looked elderly, almost old, and this, for some reason, gave them a curious air of innocence, pathos. And here the vision seems not incorrect; for they indeed belonged to the last of the innocents, of the trusting ones, who trusted their fellows as no man, perhaps, will ever trust others again.

  So, thanks to Mr Spector, I didn’t lose that last year at school as a senior and a prefect, which had seemed so desirable to me beforehand. Only, as is the case with so many things to which one looks forward in this life, the reality failed to come up to my expectations.

  The old order of things had dissolved in chaos, from which the new had yet to emerge. Even our enclosed community was affected by the general disorganization and flux; the giants of the sixth form could hardly keep their traditional majesty when, in the outer world, so much tradition was being discarded. No one quite knew what the future would be. And for those of us who were soon to leave school, this presented a serious problem. No one wanted to waste time preparing for a profession that might be scrapped altogether or radically reformed. Instances of this sort of thing weren’t uncommon and had an unsettling effect.

  The Head, in what has since become one of his best-known speeches, advised us, with cynical common sense, to stick to those callings for which there was bound to be a demand in all circumstances. But none of the enumerated occupations appealed to me, such aptitude as I possessed lying in the direction of the arts, though I’d never had any clear-cut ambition to reach a particular goal. My vague literary and artistic leanings weren’t strong enough to withstand the demoralizing uncertainty of this final year, which ought to have given definition to my studies but actually had the reverse effect, leading me to the choice in the last examination of subjects which were non-committal, directed towards no special career.

  Naturally, I’d been wanting all the time to discuss this subject, so important to me, with Mr Spector; but no opportunity had ever seemed to arise. Though he always arranged to see me during the holidays, he let me know he did so with difficulty, hinting obscurely at new powers and duties continually heaped upon him. Why didn’t I take him up on these hints? I was to wonder later. It would have been easy then for me to find out his position, which was certainly high, for, as long as there was any risk of trouble in isolated parts of the country, he was accompanied by an armed escort wherever he went. But I’d always avoided personal subjects with him, and I thought it would look odd if I started asking him questions now, for the fact was that I could no longer feel myself his close friend. For this reason, too, I disliked the idea of making demands on his time. I had hoped he would appoint himself my official guardian after my parents’ death. But, as the weeks went by and he made no move to define our mutual relations, I’d been forced to realize he had no such intention and that the position was to be left vague, which had distressed me so much that I think it may even have caused my inability to decide on a profession. Each time we met, I’d tried my hardest to win from him some sign of his former warmth; but, as nothing approaching intimacy or affection ever developed, I began to think I must have displeased him (though I couldn’t imagine how) or that he’d taken a dislike to me and only continued to befriend me in this somewhat impersonal way for the sake of the dead.

  It was a very unhappy position for me, for I still had a child’s need to attach myself to someone; or, rather, I felt I was already irrevocably attached to him, whether or not he had any use for me. I had done unexpectedly well in the last examination, but I remember thinking as the term ended that nobody cared what became of me and that my future outlook was pretty grim.

  Relentless to the last, the Headmaster didn’t send for me before I left for the usual farewell talk. It didn’t worry me; but I hoped he wouldn’t refuse to shake hands with me in front of the others when we filed past for the final leave-taking. Looking straight into his cold arrogant face when my turn came, I noticed the slightly raised eyebrows, the glance at my outstretched hand; really I didn’t see how he could avoid taking it. But, instead, he chose from a table beside him one of the gilt-edged books bound in tooled leather that were distributed as prizes, placing it in my hand and faintly inclining his head, turning it then to the next boy and leaving me to pass on; which I did without looking at him again. Now that it had happened, this little incident for some reason rather encouraged me, and I felt almost as though he’d paid me a compliment with an enmity so enduring.

  I seemed to get the better of the chessmen, too, in the end. When I looked at them for the last time from Mr Spector’s big car, they at first appeared utterly indifferent to my departure, standing stiff and unmoving in sombre rows. Then suddenly, on this bleak and blustery day, the wind set them confabulating; putting their black heads together, they gobbled and gabbled in growing excitement and finally started to dance up and down, as if in rage at being rooted there and unable to follow me, except with their clamorous mocking voices, whistling derisively after me as we drove away.

  But these were transitory moments of exhilaration. As we passed through the tall gates, and the school and its grounds were left behind, I seemed only now to realize fully that I should never set eyes on the place again. Now that, like childhood, schooldays had gone for ever, the terms, which had seemed so long while I was living through them, appeared to have flashed past like express trains. Again I was moving into the future before I had even got used to the past. Would I never catch up with myself – must my whole life be spent in chasing a ghostly entity I could never grasp? I saw in my mind a small ghost, its hair flying about its transparent head, blown like an insignificant shred of thistle down over a dark ominous continent that was my precarious future. Filled with foreboding, I glanced at the granite profile beside me and thought it might have belonged to a stranger.

  Mr Spector interrupted my thoughts with an unexpected question. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’ Holding the wheel with one hand, he flicked open his case with the other and held it towards me in a gesture he had never made before; it promptly assumed symbolic significance, marking my entry into the adult world. Next he wanted to know what my plans were, continuing, after I had answered evasively, ‘I’ve been hoping you’d work for me.’

  Even now I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question that was on my mind; but perhaps he guessed it, for he said, ‘I’m interested in so many concerns that I always need new assistants. You needn’t worry about qualifications as long as you’re prepared to work hard. The salary would be small at first. You’d have to work your way up from the bottom. But I could provide you with living quarters, which means a lot these days, as you’ll see for yourself. You’d be perfectly independent, of course; your obligations to me would be the same as to any other employer, no more and no less.’ He turned his head for an instant to look at me directly, and I felt the old spell of his power over me, catching, like a gleam of sunshine, the flicker of his attractive smile. ‘I mean that you needn’t be afraid
I’d intrude on you in any way. My only stipulation is that you don’t share the flat with anyone else. It’s in the commercial district, you see, where no members of the general public are supposed to live. I’ve arranged things with the authorities as far as you’re concerned, but they won’t stand for another person living there. But don’t decide in a hurry. I’d like you just to keep my offer in mind and we’ll talk it over again later on, when you’ve had time to look around.’

  In response to this suggestion my spirits immediately rose; because of that friendly smile, I felt happier than I’d felt for some time, convinced on the spot that to work for Mr Spector in any capacity would be the most satisfying, indeed the only satisfactory career possible for me. Impulsively I jumped at his offer, saying I needed no time to think about it but would like to accept there and then.

  ‘I’m glad you react in such a positive way,’ he said, evidently gratified by my enthusiasm, ‘though I shan’t hold you to the bargain if, after you’ve been in town a few days, you come across something better.’

  Needless to say, nothing better did turn up during the week or so Spector wished me to take as a holiday and to ‘get my bearings’; a period of enforced leisure I’d have much preferred to forgo. This wasn’t my first visit to the city; I’d already been here several times in the holidays and knew my way about. But I’d never been so much alone here as I was now, Spector being busy with his mysterious exacting affairs, leaving me to my own devices.