“I don’t think so. I don’t think that what I was reading and what I tried to write were all fantasies. I don’t think imagination and fantasy are the same thing. Imagination is seeing right into anything real, and it makes it richer—fantasy is making a substitute for it. Anyhow it was poetry, other people’s and mine, that made me happy and got me here.”
“You don’t feel the same about anything two days together. You’ve often told me that you were sick of this place.”
“I know I have and sometimes I am, but not always. I can’t be like you, Rick. You’re unselfish. You think all the time about how to make the world better for other people to live in. It’s odd because you don’t like most of them, so it’s very high-principled of you and I admire you for it. But I can’t be like that. I want to achieve something myself. I really want to write because there’s too much of everything coming into me from the world, and if I don’t make something out of it I shall explode. I want to write poetry because it goes deeper and springs higher. Poets are the miners working on the coal face, at the point of it all. I’ll help you as much as I can, you know I do and I always will, but I do want to enjoy myself.”
Rick gave Flora a venomous look as he scrambled to his feet.
“I expect you’re pleased with what you’ve done since you came back. But don’t kid yourself it will last.”
Nan jumped up as he opened the door.
“Rick. Don’t go yet. I’ll come and help you tomorrow. I’ll be there very early.”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I don’t want you. I can get other help.”
The door slammed behind him. Nan stood for an instant aghast. Then without a word she wrenched the door open; Flora heard her running along the corridor calling, “Rick! Rick!”
The sound of his heavier footsteps and of her lighter ones faded away. Flora sat on expecting Nan to come unhappily back. Nan did not come. After waiting nearly half an hour Flora returned to her own room.
“Walter and Tom are coming down on Boxing Day.”
Isobel absently picked up from the floor the jacket of William’s pyjamas, a half-eaten biscuit, and a string of Christmas tree tinsel. “I wish we could have had them to stay for Christmas, but William and Mary are on the camp beds so that Mum and Dad can have their rooms. I daresay I could have borrowed another camp bed for Tom, but there really wouldn’t be anywhere for Walter.”
“My dear Isobel, haven’t you got enough of us?”
“I don’t mind how many for a short time so long as I can make them comfortable. You’ll be all right anyhow, Flora. The spare-room bed is the newest. You won’t mind having Mary in your room. She never wakes, at least not before about seven in the morning, and then you just open the door and push her out. If she rampages in the passage tell her to go and do it somewhere else. I shall be up anyhow by then because of feeding Henry and I like to get started early in the kitchen.”
“I’ll help you with any of that. You know I love it.”
“I know you do and you’re better at it than I am. But it’s a sort of routine at Christmas. Boxing Day lunch when Walter and Tom come will be a walk-over: there will be plenty of cold turkey and ham, and mince pies and Stilton. People know what to expect if they come on Boxing Day. It’s no use them hoping for soufflés, mine often fall in anyhow. Walter will be very glad to see you again.”
“He came over to Oxford about ten days ago, and I had dinner with him.”
“How nice. Must you really go back to that cottage so soon, Flora?”
“Yes, I must. It’s Nan, my best pupil, who’s been fooling about while I’ve been away, so I must try and help her to catch up again.”
“It’s very good of you. I hope you don’t get too tired before term begins.”
“Oh, no, I shan’t. I’m fit for any amount of work now.”
“You’re still much thinner but it suits you. It gives. you a very elegant look. Thank heaven Henry is thinning me down, greedy little boy that he is. Now I must go to the station to meet Mum and Dad. I’ll take Mary, it’s her turn. Would you mind just keeping an eye on the boys till I get back? Henry is sound asleep, and William is painting his Christmas card for his grandmother; they won’t be any trouble.”
Henry woke and yelled for his mother. While Flora was pacifying him William, overcome by longing for some ice cubes to suck, scattered the contents of the fridge all over the kitchen, leaving its door swinging open.
In the intervals of dealing with the boys, Flora looked forward to the family Christmas with the temperate pleasure which was all that she could yet feel when all joys were substitutes. Her spirits rose at the thought of seeing Walter. She knew that he liked her very much as she liked him. They were on the same wave-length. She could talk to him in a way that she could not talk to her parents nor to Guy and Isobel. When she said to herself that they were all innocent people it was not that she believed Walter to be without integrity, but that in a grown-up person integrity was so much richer and fuller than innocence. Her own vigorous mind enjoyed the flavour of his wide experience, and a part of her longing for Hugh was relieved by the fact that a man was interested in her again, and cared what happened to her. This was in the back of her mind as she walked up and down with Henry and showed him his own puzzled face in the looking-glass while she kept an eye on William, now harmlessly engaged with Grannie’s Christmas card and with shameless speculations as to what she was likely to bring for him.
The need for a Boxing Day walk after too much lunch sent Flora, Walter and Tom up the cart track that climbed the wooded hill behind the house. William and Mary, for their own good and for the benefit of those who wanted an hour of peace indoors, were despatched with the walking party. Mary, obliged to part so soon from a new dolls’ pram, began the expedition in tears, but, coaxed by Tom, was soon running and jumping round him with William, as if they were two young dogs setting out for a walk with their master.
It was a fairly steep climb to the crest of the hill. The children dropped behind, and Tom slackened his long stride to their pace. Flora and Walter, at the end of the track, found themselves alone, looking down at the roof of Greystones, at the church tower and the straggle of houses that bordered the village street. Below them Tom was carrying Mary on his back and encouraging William who was toiling after him.
“He’s very sweet with them!”
“Yes. He seems to have a natural affinity with young children and animals: far more than with people of his own age. He was rather a solitary at school. I’m glad to say he’s already made two friends at Fordwick. One’s a birdwatcher; Tom loves going out with him, it’s a wonderful coast for birds. The other is the son of a Yorkshire miner who worked his way up by scholarships.”
“Like my Nan.”
“Yes. Tom has an enormous admiration for this chap. He doesn’t really approve of my having paid for his own education, though he’s very forgiving about it.”
They laughed, but Walter added seriously,
“There’s never been any real trouble between us, which is rare between father and son. I’m lucky.”
They turned to look at the rolling country on the far side of the hill.
“It’s the kind of winter afternoon when you can almost smell the spring and kid yourself you see the buds thickening. It’s always so encouraging, I think, even if it snows next day; you know Hope is at the bottom of the box. Do you find the English countryside dull, Walter, after all the exciting places you’ve spent so much time in?”
“Never. I love it more each time I see it. When I retire and leave London I shall buy a small house or some kind of shack in these parts and finish my days here. Only I should like it to be in sight of the sea.”
“I haven’t thought at all about where I shall retire to.”
He said with an inflection of sadness, “No, I shouldn’t think you’ve begun to think about that yet.”
She never had. She had thought only about the immediate future, Hugh’s next evening, the always delightfully hovering
chance that Cecily would go on a week-end visit to her mother and take Daisy with her, so that Hugh could spend a night at the cottage. Now for the first time Flora envisaged a more distant future, herself an old don coming back to St Frideswide’s for the Gaudy, to be warmly welcomed by the middle-aged women whom she had once taught and introduced to their bored daughters.
“I shouldn’t worry about it,” Walter said.
Behind them there was a yell from William, a sharp scream from Mary, and Tom’s reasonable tones.
“William, you mustn’t poke that stick at Mary. Don’t you see what a sharp point it has?”
“Yeh. It’s my spear.”
“But you could really hurt her with it. If you forgot and pushed it in her face you might put her eye out.”
Tom laid a restraining hand on the pointed stake which looked as if it had once been part of a fence. William, his eyes dancing mischief, jerked it away from Tom’s clasp, and waved it recklessly in the air.
Walter rapped out, “Drop that, William. Leave it there.”
William at once dropped the stick.
“I wasn’t really going to hurt the silly little thing.”
He jumped up the bank at the edge of the track, and with a whoop plunged into the wood. Tom and Mary followed him; the sound of their receding voices came back from between the bare trees.
“Have you had enough, Flora, or would you like to go any further? Tom will take the kids home when they’re tired.”
“I should like to go along that path at the edge of the wood, and see where it comes out. I never have.”
Along the narrow path, crossed by tree roots and half blocked by brambles, they could only walk in single file. Walter, ahead, held back the brambles with his stick for Flora to pass.
“When do you go to your cottage?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“You’re not allowing yourself much holiday.”
“I had plenty down at the Bird in the Bush. Have you heard any news of Janet and George?”
“Only a Christmas card.”
“Nice people!”
“Very.”
There are times, Flora knew, when what you are saying is not the real conversation, but a surface accompaniment to a silent communication going on underneath.
She looked at Walter’s back: dark hair, always a little rough and streaked here and there with grey; square shoulders, broadened by the thick wool of his sweater; a sinewy neck rising out of its collar; two rather large ears set close where the hair was most grey.
“If your girl doesn’t turn up and you’re alone at the cottage will you let me know?”
“Yes, I will.”
“I’ll come over and take you out, don’t forget.”
“No, of course not.”
They came to the end of the path and stepped out from between the tree trunks onto a shelf of rough grass, faded and yellowish with winter. The air was colder; the valley below in deep shadow. Cars travelling the secondary roads had their lights on, here and there in a farm house or cottage a window glowed yellow. As she turned to look south Flora caught her foot in the tussocky grass, and would have fallen if Walter had not caught her. Her chin scraped the rough wool of his jersey, she felt his breath on her hair and his grip on her tightened. Then he stood back from her holding her by her shoulder.
“All right? Did you twist your ankle?”
“No, I only caught my foot in a hole. I’m perfectly all right, thanks.”
“We’d better go down the hill before it gets dark.”
Flora half expected to find at the cottage a letter from Nan to say that she wasn’t coming. There was no letter. Although she had been over several times with Lalage this was the first time Flora had been alone there since last summer. She planned her arrival for daylight, and occupied herself by bringing in wood, lighting the fire, vigorously dusting the whole place, and making up the beds. She cooked her supper, made a large pot of coffee, and sat down with her own lecture notes for the evening.
Of course Hugh’s presence was with her, stooping under the lintel of the door, lighting a cigarette, turning the pages of a book, facing her across the table, lifting a glass. She was on the whole glad to have this one evening alone in his remembered company. She went to bed late, slept, dreamed that she was in his arms and woke, desolate, but steady, prepared for the fortnight’s work before her.
She spent three hours on her lecture, then walked to the village to buy bread and butter and stamps. The fine weather still held but there was a forecast of rain, and clouds were gathering. When she came back and opened her front door she saw a telegram lying on the mat, and read words which were hardly a surprise to her.
“Not coming. Nan.”
Flora tore the telegram into shreds, and threw them in the fire.
Damn the girl! She stamped into the kitchen and banged about, making toast and burning it, cooking eggs and bacon which she swallowed in a rage so that they gave her indigestion.
And now what am I going to do? Go to Swanscombe to Mum and Dad? Ask Isobel to have me back? Sit here alone for a fortnight and get on with my work? Or shall I drive up to Yorkshire and take that silly girl by the hair and drag her back with me? She probably wouldn’t come, and I should lose any influence I have over her; there are still two terms in which she might just save herself. But to throw away this chance! I could wring her neck.
Flora went out for a walk to work off her anger by movement. The day had turned very cold, the rain which at times was more like sleet came down heavily. The back lane, dry when she started, clogged her boots with mud when she came back. She was still very angry with Nan but she had made up her mind. She would stay on at the cottage and finish her lectures, perhaps start the next chapter of her book. Before beginning the evening’s work she wrote a brief note to Lalage to tell her what had happened, then wrote to Walter because she had promised to let him know if she found herself alone. Her spirits rose at the thought that he would certainly come down to see her. When she had sealed and stamped the two letters she put the roast that she had been going to cook for Nan and herself in the oven, and spread out her lecture notes on the sitting room table.
She was soon absorbed, but she looked up now and then as a draught from the ill-fitting window blew in the curtain and brought a swirl of smoke from the fire. Rain that sounded almost like hail battered the roof and walls.
She remembered one night like this in the last winter when she had been expecting Hugh but had decided that he could not possibly be coming; then through the noise of the wind and rain she heard his car driving round the house. She had the door open before he was out of the car, and pulled him in from the weather, laughing with joy at this unexpected pleasure.
She was not apt to be nervous when she was alone in a house, but she thought that she must have imagined the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside. A loud knock on the door surprised her. One of the Woolcotes from the farm, probably, with a telephone message. She opened the door. On the threshold stood Nan. From below a soaking scarf strands of hair darkened by the rain stuck to her wet face. She carried a dripping haversack on her shoulders. In the light from the doorway she looked sullen and defiant, but also looked rather like a dog who has been punished and wonders if he will be forgiven by his master.
“So here you are.”
Nan muttered something indistinguishable.
“You’re half drowned, child. Come along in and get dry and warm.”
Part V
On The First Monday of term, a lightless afternoon on which Oxford seemed to lie congealed under a flat river-cold, Flora hurried round the corner from Broad Street into the Turl, and almost collided with Martin Croft.
“Hulloa, Flora. You look warm though you can’t be. I’ve always said that the Lent Term was a mistake, they ought to cut it out … How are you? What have you been doing lately?”
“I spent the last part of my vac at my cottage catching up with my own work, and conducting a one-man reading pa
rty for Nan Coates.”
“Your infant prodigy. Has she written any more good poems?”
“No, none at all. She’s run into a bad block.”
“And she’s not old enough to have learnt how to unblock herself; which after all is the writer’s hardest job. Some never manage it.”
“Nan will. How is Ludo?”
“Sacked. My friend who has been employing him has in the kindness of his heart given him three months in which to look out for another job that will suit him better. Ludo was in my room wailing all yesterday afternoon.”
“Poor boy!”
Martin shrugged. “I don’t know that I can do any more for him. I mustn’t keep you standing in the cold.”
“I shall be seeing you, I expect. You’ll be coming to St Frid’s to dine with Lalage.”
“Possibly. By the way Miranda is coming over next Sunday. Would you like to lunch with us?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m going out to lunch.”
“Well.” Martin pushed his chin down into his scarf. As he was about to move on the slightly wolfish expression with which he always listened to gossip sharpened his face. “Do tell me … would you have come to see Miranda again if you had been free?”
“As I’m not I don’t need to work that one out.” She added, deliberately perfunctory, “Thanks for asking me.
“Not at all. Some other time perhaps. That is if there is any lunch at any other time. There may be no electricity or whatever to cook it on. Do you realize that this miners’ strike means that very soon we’re all going to freeze in our colleges? Damn the bastards!”
“They are underpaid compared with other workers. I know quite a lot about it from what Nan tells me.”
“So are you and I underpaid compared with other professions. Heath ought to put the troops into the power stations at once to stop this picketing.”
“And perhaps start an Ulster over here?”
“Oh, nonsense, that’s an entirely different set-up. Besides you never get anywhere by allowing fear to be your motive. I know you, you’ve got this bee in your bonnet about wanting to be fair to everybody, but it’s a romantic delusion, to think it possible. The world has never been run on those lines, and never will be … Personally I’m glad. I want more than my share. Goodbye.”
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