Swan Song

by Crispin, Edmund

  Its causes were various. The impact of violent death had left them nervous, though they scarcely recognized the fact. Mere physical apprehension was only a part of it; there was also a suppressed atavism, a superstitious horror, still potent from the remote origins of the race, of the inexplicable. It was unconscious, but it was there. In Adam’s case it was complicated partly by the strain of the final rehearsals (the death of Shorthouse having resulted in an abnormally high pressure of work for everyone) and partly by a temporary, irrational reaction against the disorderliness which has characterized the theatrical profession at all times and everywhere; in Elizabeth’s by the constant surveillance on which Adam insisted. She was one of those who have an urgent, innate need of occasional solitude – and the war has shown, if proof be needed, that such people, when forced to be continually gregarious, become fretful and in extreme cases even insane.

  They did not speak of these matters, being indeed only half conscious of them. Nor was their criticism of each other explicit; at most it was a matter of hints. But they were aware of the estrangement, and, by seeking for explanations of it more or less complimentary to themselves, accentuated it. The progess of their malaise had not of course reached as yet a point which could be described as crucial; it was reversible as and when they chose. Unluckily, neither of them was inclined to make the first move.

  During the afternoon Adam slept, and was troubled with nightmares. When he awoke, dry-mouthed and with a feeling of nausea, there was only one of them that he could remember. He had seemed to be driving along a country road, and had come in sight of a large, grey, low-built, part-medieval building. Though he had never seen it before, he knew instinctively that its name was Oldacre Priory. He entered one of its rooms, which was sparsely furnished and hung with tattered banners. The place seemed to be a museum. There was no life in it, but he was later to find that there were creatures which moved. He opened a door which gave on to a courtyard. For a moment it seemed quiet, and then the building began to vibrate with a heavy tramping, and a file of armoured knights came into view. He was aware that there were no men inside the armour, either alive or dead. Nor were the things robots. They were mere accumulations of matter, moved purposively by some force outside themselves. They did not see him, but there was something about them which made him withdraw, very quickly and quietly, into the room of the banners, close the door, and lean for a moment against it to catch his breath. Then he started to run.

  He ran quietly and rapidly through room after room of that vast, deserted place, seeking a way out. There was no sound save for the distant trampling of the knights. By this, in so far as his confusion and panic allowed, he regulated his course, keeping as far away from it as possible. At last, after what seemed an eternity, he came out at the end of an immensely long gallery. There was a figure standing motionless at the farther end, and until it moved he took it for a waxwork or a statue. Then, quite suddenly, he saw that it was Elizabeth, and that her jaws were tied together with a band of rotting linen, as are the jaws of a person long dead. She began moving swiftly towards him, and he – not in love, not in welcome, but in unendurable fear – ran towards her. As she came nearer, he saw that the linen band had given way, and that the lower jaw was hanging loose. He reflected, insanely, that this would not hamper a person who no longer spoke or ate or breathed. In the middle of the gallery they met in a clutching embrace, and it seemed to him that his heart burst with the horror of it.

  He awoke trembling, and for some moments struggled dazedly to assimilate the somnolent, matter-of-fact atmosphere of the hotel lounge. Near him, Elizabeth sat at a table writing letters. When his jangled nerves were a little quietened, he went over to her.

  ‘I’ve just had’ – he spoke hesitantly – ‘rather a horrible dream.’

  ‘Have you, dear?’ She was brisk and indifferent. ‘I’m sorry . . . But for God’s sake don’t tell me about it. There are few things duller than someone else’s dream.’

  The realities came rushing back. This was a worse nightmare than the other had been. ‘Elizabeth,’ he burst out, ‘what’s the matter with us?’

  ‘My dear, I couldn’t say. I wasn’t aware that there was anything the matter with me . . . Do you mind if I finish this letter?’

  ‘Yes I do mind. I want to talk seriously to you.’

  ‘Must it be in public?’ Elizabeth murmured.

  ‘There’s no one listening . . . Darling, our marriage has gone wrong somewhere.’

  ‘This sounds,’ said Elizabeth judicially, ‘like the beginning of a scene in a ninth-rate British film.’

  ‘Please listen to me. I know one talks clichés on these occasions, but I’ll do my best not to be trite . . . I want to know if there’s anything I can do to help us to get back.’

  ‘To get back?’ Elizabeth spoke with polite incomprehension.

  ‘To what we felt, for example, on our honeymoon.’

  Elizabeth looked up at him, and her eyes were unsympathetic.’ Is that so very desirable? We’ll have to get our marriage on a rational basis sooner or later. It can’t be expected that we shall go on slobbering over one another all our lives.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Adam bitterly, ‘if my poor attempts to make you happy are to be classified as “slobbering”.’

  ‘Don’t give way to self-pity, my dear. It’s never a very agreeable sight.’

  Adam controlled himself with an effort. ‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I’ve no doubt that there are many things I do which irritate you. But I wish you’d tell me about them, and then perhaps I can remedy the matter.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Elizabeth, and it was this reiterated, meaningless form of address which exacerbated Adam as much as anything else – ‘my dear, if you haven’t the sense to see your own defects, no catalogue from me will do any good. One doesn’t make a blind man see by reeling off a list of flowers.’

  ‘It doesn’t occur to you that you yourself may not be entirely perfect?’

  Elizabeth’s anger rose to the surface. ‘Obviously I’m not perfect. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you’re being damnably uncivil.’

  ‘I was simply trying to get to the bottom of this – this trouble between us.’

  ‘You go about it in a peculiar way.’ Elizabeth rose, collecting her letters and notepaper. ‘Obviously you won’t let me finish what I’m doing. I’m going upstairs. Will you leave me undisturbed, please?’

  She walked out of the lounge. Adam returned miserably to his chair. This was far worse than their first quarrel; this was cold and vehement. Half unwillingly, they had come to a crisis.

  It needed the events of that evening to dispose of it.

  Joan Davis and George Peacock walked in the gardens of St John’s College.

  A dilute, pale-yellow sun was struggling to appear, but the air was damp and cold, so they walked quickly, Peacock with a long, sprawling stride, Joan with an occasional little running step in order to keep up with him. She reflected wryly that it was a long time since she had last inconvenienced herself, even to this small extent, for the sake of a man’s company. Several times they encircled the great central lawn; Peacock did not seem anxious to make any change in their orbit.

  ‘One feels,’ Joan ventured, ‘rather like a rat on a wheel. Or like those Alpine travellers who struggle through blizzards and always come back to the place they started from.’

  He looked at her quickly. ‘You’re bored?’

  ‘Of course not. I shouldn’t stay if I were.’

  For a time they walked on in silence. Peacock was not normally loquacious, and at present he seemed preoccupied to the point of rudeness. ‘But of course it’s my own fault,’ Joan thought. ‘It was I who suggested this walk, and the poor devil hadn’t really much chance to refuse . . . No, that’s absurd. He could very well have said he wanted to rest before the show. Presumably, then, he doesn’t mind being with me all that much.’

  Aloud she said: ‘You’re not nervous about tonight?’

  He
laughed. ‘Horribly. The box-office tells me that Ernest Newman’s going to be there.’

  ‘What could be better?’

  ‘A good many things could be better. Conducting Wagner in front of Ernest Newman must be rather like lecturing one of the cherubims on the nature of Deity . . . However, I shall probably survive.’

  ‘You’re satisfied with the way things have gone?’

  ‘The way the cast has behaved,’ he said, ‘makes me feel very humble. Every one of you knows ten times as much about opera as I do, and yet you’ve worked like demons to produce the effects I wanted. I couldn’t have been luckier.’

  Joan was oddly moved. ‘Don’t be so absurd,’ she answered warmly. ‘We should have fought you tooth and nail if you hadn’t so obviously known your job. And anyway it was to our own advantage. We shall probably get the credit for your ideas . . . What are you going to do when this run’s over?’

  ‘It depends on Levi . . . I think I may get a permament engagement here if Meistersinger comes off satisfactorily.’

  ‘Then don’t worry. The job’s as good as yours.’

  They paused, rather abstractly, to examine a robin which was hopping erratically about on the edge of the lawn. After a while Peacock said:

  ‘May I ask a very personal question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re not married, are you?’

  ‘Not now. A few years ago I was, but I divorced my husband. Our conjugal bliss lasted, I think, about thirteen hours from the time we left the church . . . However, that doesn’t matter. It’s finished, thank God.’

  ‘Would you – you wouldn’t consider marrying me, I suppose?’

  Joan looked up at him. Her puckish face was twisted into a half-smile which oddly suggested the imminence of tears. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But would it be wise?’

  ‘I know I’m not –’

  ‘I mean from your point of view. Oughtn’t you to marry someone much younger than I? “My child”,’ she quoted, ‘“of Tristan and Isolde a grievous tale I know. Hans Sachs was wise and would not endure King Marke’s woe” . . . Not quite apposite, perhaps. You should think rather of Hofmannsthal’s Marschallin . . .’ And to herself she said: ‘Why this inane, allusive chatter? Surely I’m old enough by now not to have my head turned by a proposal?’

  Peacock spoke awkwardly. ‘If you mean that you don’t want –’

  ‘I mean,’ she interrupted him, ‘that it’s only fair to you to put the situation brutally. I’m thirty-five – by no means in the fleur de mes fours. I know,’ she went on rapidly as he opened his mouth to speak, ‘that mine is the age politely referred to as a woman’s maturity. But the unfortunate thing about maturity is that it isn’t youth, and a man who marries a mature woman is like a man doomed to make all his purchases in the second-hand shops.’ She hesitated. ‘You see what I mean?’

  He bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was too presumptuous of me.’ And abruptly he left her and went stalking across the lawn towards the garden front of the college.

  As she watched him go, tears came to her eyes. That, she told herself bitterly, was what came of being sane and level-headed on the subject of marriage. Obviously he had thought she was only trying to avoid wounding him by a direct refusal. And every moment that passed was making it more and more impossible to re-open the subject. Her pride, she knew, would forbid her to go to him, hours later, and say: ‘About our conversation this afternoon . . .’ No, unthinkable. And yet he was too sensitive to make the offer a second time. Happiness was slipping away from her with his receding figure. Quickly, decide.

  She ran after him. ‘Wait for me!’ she gasped. ‘Wait for me!’

  He stopped, turned. As she came nearer he saw that her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks red with the cold air. She came up with him, and hesitated, partly out of embarrassment, partly to catch her breath. He took her hand to his, and kissed her very quickly and gently on the lips.

  ‘One gets the best things nowadays,’ he said gravely, ‘in the second-hand shops.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BEATRIX THORN AND the Master sat in the lounge of the ‘Mitre’ hotel.

  ‘Surely, Master, it will do you harm to drink so much beer.’

  ‘I shall drink as much beer as I wish, Beatrix.’

  ‘Of course. But you mustn’t undermine your constitution.’

  ‘My constitution was undermined years ago.’

  ‘In that case we must take care that it doesn’t collapse altogether.’

  ‘When I collapse, I shall collapse, and that will be an end to it.’

  ‘But you have a duty to posterity.’

  ‘Posterity has never done anything for me . . . I wonder why Wilkes made such a curious request?’

  ‘It strikes me as sinister.’

  ‘No doubt he had his reasons. I’m thinking, Beatrix, of buying a small sports car.’

  ‘Better not. You would find the noise unendurable.’

  ‘But I like noise. You don’t seem to realize that I like noise.’

  ‘Nonsense, Master.’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense. If I want a small sports car, I shall have it.’

  ‘Of course if you insist . . . But let me explain the disadvantages.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘In the first place –’

  ‘I asked you to be quiet, Beatrix. I’m trying to think out the opening scene of my new opera.’

  ‘I only wanted to say that –’

  ‘Be quiet. How can I concentrate when you insist on talking about cars?’

  ‘Very well, Master.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said, very well.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Karl Wolzogen climbed on to a bus at Carfax which took him to Headington. From there he walked towards Wheatley – a small, thin, stooping figure, trudging along with his hands thrust for warmth into the pockets of a disreputable overcoat. He had had that overcoat for so long that he had completely forgotten when and where it had been bought. Somewhere in Germany or Austria, certainly. He paused to examine the grease-stained tab sewn inside one of the cuffs. Friedrich Jensen, Wettinerstrasse 83D, Dresden. He remembered now – remembered, too, that there had been a girl who lived in the Wettinerstrasse, a dark girl, perhaps a nachgedunkelte Schrumpfgermane, or perhaps with Jewish blood. In the latter case, what would have happened to her? She had had no use for opera. ‘Das alles ist altmodisch,’ she had said. But he was old-fashioned too. As he grew older he lived more and more in the past. It meant that the end was not far off, and he was sufficiently satiated with living to be indifferent. Except perhaps for the loneliness which had come as a reward for his exclusive devotion to music, the world had given him only what he desired of it. He had reason enough to be content.

  A passing labourer wished him good afternoon, and glanced at him with quick, sharp curiosity when he replied. They distrust us, he thought. They distrust the Germans, and one can’t blame them. But they don’t realize that we distrust them, too. Dresden in ruins . . . The opera-house gone; no longer any refuge for the shades of Weber and Wagner and Strauss. But Strauss was alive. He was at Garmisch. He had had an operation. Perhaps he would welcome a visit from someone with the same background, the same memories, as himself . . . Were there still pigeons on the Brühlsche Terrasse? The long, thick black poles at the corners of the Post Platz, each surmounted with its tiny gold swastika, would have been taken down. No loss . . . Hot chocolate in a restaurant in the Neu Markt, and Frieda listening in insolent silence while he talked of the opera. One evening she had admitted him to her bed. He had been clumsy, it had been a failure, but that hardly mattered now, any more than three years of near-starvation during the slump mattered. He would have enough to eat until he died . . .

  Edwin Shorthouse is dead, he thought, the dismembered fragments of his body decorously reassembled in the coffin. He will cause no more trouble, and that is good and right and proper.

  Judith Stapleton turned
the corner by the New Bodleian and began to walk down Parks Road. At a discreet distance a man followed her. She went slowly, with bent shoulders and eyes grown ugly with crying. Presently she came to the Radcliffe Science Building, and climbed the stairs to the library. The librarian looked up as she entered.

  ‘Is it possible for me to use the library?’ she said.

  ‘Are you a science student?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In that case I can only give permission if you’re a graduate.’

  ‘I am a graduate,’ Judith lied.

  ‘I see. Will you write down your name, degree, and college in this book?’

  Judith wrote: ‘Ann Matthews, B.A., St Hilda’s.’

  ‘I want the section on forensic medicine,’ she said.

  ‘Straight through, second bay on your right.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There were very few other people in the library. Judith took down a standard text-book, settled down at a table, and looked up the article on food poisoning. Over this she spent some time, but without obtaining any satisfaction from it. Idly she turned back the pages, until some words in the section on arsenic caught her eye.

  ‘There is a progressive cachexia and loss of flesh,’ she read, ‘due to malnutrition and physical and mental fatigue. The tongue is usually furred, or may be red and irritable. There is often an irritative condition of the fauces which causes constant hawking and laryngitis. The eyes are suffused and watery, the conjunctiva reddened and smarting, and the lids may be puffy.

  ‘Gastric irritability with attacks of vomiting and diarrhoea are common, and there is usually loss of appetite and distaste for food . . . An eczematous condition of the skin, pigmentation, and keratosis of the palms and soles may be observed. A white band sometimes may be noticed crossing the nails of the fingers and toes.

  ‘Nervous symptoms may be pronounced or only slightly developed. Numbness and tingling of the hands and feet, accompanied by tenderness, and tenderness of the muscles are first complained of. These symptoms of peripheral neuritis are followed by atrophy of the muscles and paresis or paralysis.’