by MARY HOCKING
‘Oh that, well . . .’ He was pleased to note that she was not in the least brash. ‘I think you were very brave even to try. I can’t go in a lift. I always tell my kids – “I’ll give the last drop of my blood for you, but if anything happens to you in a lift, you’re on your own.” ’
‘The last drop of my blood’. Oh dear, oh dear! She really had a long way to go.
Charles had frequently regretted the fact that nowadays it is almost impossible for two people to remain in the same room and be silent; that, in fact, to come upon a couple so engaged would be more convincing proof of intimacy than catching them in an embrace. Perhaps some such thought was in the mind of Andy Possett when he opened the sitting-room door. Certainly, he looked very stern as he gazed upon Charles and Shirley. There was now a rather alarming silence involving three people. Charles noted that he carried a tool bag from which a hammer protruded.
It was Shirley who spoke first. ‘Finished for today, have you, then, Andy?’ She nodded her head busily to illustrate comprehension of the situation and smiled to show that this was all as it should be.
Andy said, ‘I’ll see Miss Pascoe tomorrow.’ He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. They watched him go slowly down the garden path, his tool kit slung over one shoulder.
Shirley said, ‘Phew!’
Charles said, ‘I think Hester may feel that we should have kept him here until she arrived with Mrs Hardacre.’
Hester did.
Valentine was talking to Desmond as they gardened. She talked a lot to him and always about things which interested him; the properties of the soil – what it would nourish and what it would fail to support, the remarkable adaptability shown by squirrels in their approach to the nut stocking, the intractability of snails and the industry of ants. When he made a contribution she accepted or rejected it according to its merits. The matter at issue was the garden, its flowers, its mollusc, insect and birdlife. Polite conversation had no place in their exchanges.
‘Ugh!’ She shook her head vigorously and the halo of gnats danced to its movement. She would stop working now, Desmond thought glumly, and sure enough she said, ‘This is the time of evening when one should be indoors.’
Reluctantly he began to collect the gardening implements. She said, ‘When you have cleared away would you like to look up that wild flower you were describing? I’ll bring you a fruit drink in the study.’ She did not ask him to be sure to wash his hands, she had already observed that he handled books with respect.
Desmond, delighted to have the freedom of the study, accelerated the cleaning-up process, rubbing away the earth from the hoe before hitching it on a hook on the wall of the shed.
‘How do you find him?’ Michael asked when Valentine came into the kitchen where he was pressing a lime over a jug containing a slightly bitter concoction of his own devising. It was a splendid thirst quencher and very refreshing but no one had ever asked the Hoaths for the recipe. Valentine maintained that this was due to the fact that English tastes are regrettably bland.
‘He’s an odd boy.’ She cut another lime and handed it to him. ‘But not antagonistic. I don’t feel any antagonism, do you?’
‘I don’t feel anything at all. He is very strange.’ Michael looked into the garden where Desmond was washing his hands beneath the garden tap, although he could perfectly well have come into the kitchen. His body conveyed an impression of pain, as if it had been stretched on a rack until all the suppleness had gone from the limbs. Yet, in spite of the appearance of dislocation, Michael had earlier seen him move with a kind of swooping grace, feet barely seeming to touch earth. ‘I was watching you both out in the garden and I thought to myself, I have no idea what that boy sees. Of course, I don’t know exactly what it is you see, but I am fairly sure it is something akin to my own vision. Whereas when I look at that blackbird perched on the wire up there, I have no idea what his view of our garden is. Or Desmond’s.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean.’ Valentine licked the flesh of a squeezed orange. ‘Like Neanderthal man, observing homo sapiens from a safe distance. Is it just a game he plays or is it more serious?’
Desmond, drying his hands on a piece of sacking, was well aware of his separateness but concerned only in so much as it troubled his mother. He loved his mother because he knew that his mother loved him. For her sake he had attended sessions with the educational psychologist who had gently tried to uncover the deep resentments which she felt he must be concealing. They had confronted each other across a chasm which for Desmond was quite literally there. Every time he sat down to talk to her he could see the precipice and one leg of her chair perilously close to its jagged edge. She was a plump, warm woman, not unlike his mother, and reminded him of a roly-poly pudding, oozing all the good things in which his tongue delighted, and it worried him to see her perched on the edge of oblivion – because oblivion was undoubtedly the place to which he would consign her were she to go too far; he would certainly not put out a hand to bring her to his side of the chasm. In the end she had pronounced his troubles too deep-seated for her to reach. His mother had firmly rejected the suggestion that Desmond should see a psychiatrist. ‘He will work his way out of it,’ she had affirmed. And Desmond, who felt much safer on his side of the chasm, was none the less sorry because he would have liked to prove his mother wiser than the experts. But not at the price of bridge building.
He closed the shed door, took off his boots and hurried towards the house, going quietly through the open French windows and making his way to the study. It was not the dictionary of wild flowers which he took down from the shelf, but a book which he had come across a week ago. He was reading it when Michael Hoath came in with that rather awful fruit drink and a bowl of sugar – ‘In case you find it a trifle bitter.’ He had already contrived to upset some of the liquid and the glass was sticky. Desmond put the book carefully to one side before accepting the glass, and Michael saw the title – The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley.
‘An odd book, that – hardly one of the seminal works on anthropology.’
The moment the amused, dismissive words were spoken he regretted them. Desmond had not seemed to respond, yet for the first time something happened between these two. Understanding was too cerebral a word for a purely physical experience, the smarting of a wound exposed to the air. As he fingered the book Michael recalled how he had felt years ago when a master had smiled to himself when he found him reading Look Homeward, Angel: seeing his distress, the man had said, kindly enough, ‘There’s a lot to be said for exploring new continents. Have you come across Carson McCullers? Very much in command of her material, I always feel.’ But it was the excess which Michael had loved in Wolfe, the passion which burst the seams of fiction.
As for the matter of being in command of material, neither the man nor the boy in this room gave the impression of having achieved harmony between mind and body. Movements were not well co-ordinated and one felt that the objects which they approached, furniture or even books, were under threat. Desmond handled glass and sugar bowl as though deliberately taking risks with them – a small exercise in the possibilities of destruction. In Michael Hoath’s case, the impression was one of over-eagerness. Neither was a naturally studious person and each brought a store of unused energy into the book-lined room. Some people seem to attain early in life the air of a finished product; while others must labour unceasingly at the process of moulding and refining. One felt that, however long they might live, Michael Hoath and Desmond Treglowan would always present an appearance of incompletion, the suggestion of work still in progress.
Michael went to a shelf where the books were tightly packed. His fingers groped impatiently, scraping the knuckles before he managed to pull one volume free. ‘This is Eiseley’s The Unexpected Universe.’ He pushed the book towards Desmond. ‘You might like to borrow them both.’
Desmond received this olive branch with every appearance of apathy. Michael did not blame him. He said, ‘I’d like them back. I
do dip into them from time to time.’
‘Perhaps you should write your name in them?’ Desmond suggested curtly. ‘In case I forget where I got them from.’
Michael refrained from saying ‘I trust you’ which Desmond would have found not only offensive but burdensome, spoiling his pleasure in reading because he felt himself bound by some obligation of honour. He wrote his name in both books and handed them to Desmond who departed soon afterwards.
A fine mess I made of that, Michael thought. But what could this little-known American anthropologist have to say which was relevant to Desmond? And yet he and Valentine had been fairly ruthless in turning out books before this latest move, but Eiseley’s books remained. Why, he wondered? The answer came to him some time later, as is the way of answers, when he should have had his mind on other things. He found it rather disconcerting. It was for a certain rawness which he valued these books; there was too much pain in them to throw them away. One could only hope their appeal to Desmond was rather different.
Charles’s lecture was to be held in the United Reformed Church Hall. The town had increasingly to cater for the needs of an ageing population which included a high proportion of retired professional people, many of whom had travelled west in search of kinder air and cheaper housing. It was these people who were behind the attempt to establish a university of the third age – a concept which greatly enhanced the attraction of courses and lectures designed for those of mature years. Shirley Treglowan and Valentine Hoath found themselves considerably younger than most of those present. Shirley approached Valentine with diffidence.
By the standards of the town, which were not demanding, Valentine Hoath looked expensive and, which was rather more offensive, elegant. Shirley thought she must spend a lot of money on clothes and appearance generally. In fact, the dark, upswept curls owed their stylishness more to the shapely head and long neck than to the attention of a hairdresser. As for the grey suit which Shirley so admired, it had been bought several years ago at one of Marks and Spencer’s sales; Valentine had trimmed the skirt and pockets with turquoise braid and had lined the tie with turquoise silk. She had little dress money but a flair for transforming the mundane. It was doubtful whether the townswomen would have warmed to her had they known this, money being more acceptable than flair.
‘The Vicar not coming?’ Shirley asked.
‘I’m afraid he doesn’t have much time for reading, let alone discussing what he has read.’ Valentine was aware of sounding like the worst kind of clergy wife, speaking from a higher horse than ever the husband mounted.
‘Perhaps I could sit beside you, then. Would you mind? I don’t know anyone here.’
Valentine, surprised but not displeased that Michael’s absence should seem a bonus, moved her handbag from the adjacent seat.
‘Or perhaps you were keeping a place for someone else?’ Shirley hovered, unsure of herself.
‘Only for Hester, who probably won’t come.’
The Rector’s wife moved down the row in front of them and smiled distantly at Valentine. Later she told her husband, ‘I can’t imagine what your flock would think if I turned up at meetings looking like a fashion model.’
‘I get nervous going out where I’ll meet strangers. Isn’t it silly?’ Shirley sat down and folded her arms round a straw bag into which she had stuffed a jersey in case the mist had come up from the river by the time the meeting was over. She rested her chin on her hands and surveyed the room like someone peeping over a protective hedge. ‘I nearly turned back, but I told myself this was a good way of meeting people – not just social, learning together.’
Valentine, recognizing that nerves dictated the flow of talk, probed cautiously. ‘You don’t go out much? I suppose teaching is very demanding.’
‘Oh, it’s not that. It was Clifford going.’ Shirley bounced the bag up and down on her knees. ‘I was stunned. For years I couldn’t seem to get myself going. I dropped out of everything.’
‘He has married again?’
‘It wasn’t like that. It was a fellow.’
Valentine was startled. Michael had not mentioned this. There were things he kept to himself, and rightly, but as this must be common knowledge there was no point in his not telling her. Probably it had shocked him. He had deep reserves of shockability. Valentine was shocked herself. Perhaps it was Shirley’s presence, ample flesh and blood overflowing the short puce tunic one could scarcely call a dress, which brought the reality home like the thrust of a knife in her own breast. The humiliation of it! And, worse than the blow to one’s pride, the fragmenting of the always fragile perception of one’s own personality. Most bitter of all, to be subjected to pity and the questionably motivated attempts to help one – odious phrase – talk things through. I should kill myself, she thought, that is what I should do. She felt icy calm, as though this death was actually unfolding and had a clear picture of herself on the bridge over the river; then realized it was Rosmersholm she had in mind. Blast Ibsen!
‘I didn’t guess,’ Shirley was saying. ‘Several of my friends told me they had always wondered. They must have thought I was an awful fool.’
‘There is never a shortage of people who are wise after the event.’ Valentine decided she must try to be more tolerant of this woman who did not seem so predatory now that one knew of her misfortune. ‘What about the theatre club? Wouldn’t that be an outlet?’
‘You’re playing Hedda.’
‘Yes. How news does get about.’
‘Rehearsals going well?’
Valentine shrugged her shoulders. ‘Early days.’ She was going through her bad period at the theatre. The prompt was too eager, but must be tolerated – one must never antagonize the back stage staff, the poor dears were so aware of their inferiority. The producer was a different matter and Valentine had already had to make it clear that she was unable to work with someone who mapped out every move like a drill sergeant.
Shirley said, ‘I do props for some of the shows. It’s the one thing I’ve carried on with. There’s nothing like a theatre for accommodating misfits, is there?’
Valentine, to whom this idea had not presented itself, made no reply.
Shirley went on, ‘I’m always making things for the kids in my class, helping with their projects. It comes in useful in the theatre, that soft of gift. I did a lot of the props for the opera company when they did Peter Grimes – fish and all that. Desmond and Tracy and Clifford all had parts as fisherfolk. It was such a happy time.’
It was just the kind of family activity which Michael would have relished had they had children. Momentarily, Valentine was surprised by an extraordinary blend of pain and sweetness, a brief taste of borrowed happiness.
She looked about her, irritated, not at all sure that she wanted to sit here listening to Charles Venables whittering on about Anna and passion.
Women outnumbered men, but not to a marked degree. Predictably among those present were ex-civil servants and retired teachers, but there were also several engineers, senior electricians, draughtsmen, abandoned by the firms to which they had given their lives and now, late in their day, anxious to discover the mysterious world of the imagination which had been largely hidden from them during the years when the blood flowed most strongly in their veins.
Charles did well by his audience. Something came alive in him which was allowed no outlet outside the constraints of literature. He spoke as one who has treasures to unfold and left little doubt that he loved Anna more faithfully than Vronsky. It was the only way in which Charles ever risked himself. His reward was not great. His audience was attentive and, one might have thought, sympathetic to his interpretation of the book and its major characters. Later discussion revealed a rather different state of affairs. There was not, it seemed, a great deal of sympathy for Anna and a general feeling that the book should have been about something else. The men who had come to serious literature for the first time had brought with them a requirement that it should define itself in their terms. I
n spite of a vague need to extend their horizons, they were not prepared to investigate a side of their personality which had never been used, but rather sought to imprison the book within their own limits. Charles was given to understand that they had expected something pretty tough-minded from a writer in the twilight period before the dawn of the great revolution. To them, Anna was an irritating irrelevance. One man asked, ‘Do you think perhaps she represents the old way of life that can’t survive in the climate of revolution?’
‘If so, it is a very idealized way of representing life under the Czars, wouldn’t you think?’ Charles did not bother to conceal his impatience.
The women were more ambivalent. To Charles, Anna was true woman, but they seemed to have a different concept of womankind. Woman was emerging, what she truly was had not yet been revealed, but one thing was for sure, she wouldn’t be like Anna Karenina. It wasn’t just that they had little patience with a woman who placed such high value on passion as distinct from sex, some of them actually showed a tendency to defend Karenin.
‘She is one of those women who want things all ways,’ a retired college lecturer said tartly. ‘Even when Karenin offers a divorce she won’t accept it because the offer doesn’t quite meet the picture of herself which she must at all times preserve.’
Another woman said, ‘She must constantly see herself as noble, not beholden to others, a person who rises above the sordid.’
It seemed that Anna belonged to a kind of woman who would have no allies – her own sex turned against her now as they had then. But then she had sinned against society. What had she done, Charles wondered, to arouse such dislike in these liberated women? So close on the thought it seemed almost miraculous, he heard Valentine Hoath speak.