Veronica lowered her gaze; the thick eyelashes fluttering onto her cheek. Her eyes came up again and met Dorothy’s. “I nearly forgot why I came in. I would like to invite you to a picnic.”
“That sounds lovely, but isn’t it a little cool for the park?”
“We’ll picnic indoors. In my room, next Saturday. Just you and me. We’ll be able to talk without interruption. Please say you can come.”
* * *
BERTIE WAS WORRIED about his work. A novel was on the cusp of being published, and he was anxious about its reception. He felt his publisher wasn’t putting enough “go” into his books.
“I can predict it all,” he said gloomily. “The glimmer of interest, the faint stirring of publicity, the flop, the flop.” His words were humorous, the emotion behind them was not.
He and Dorothy were lying on the bed in Russell Square. The sheets were in disarray, half coming off the mattress. Bertie lit a cigarette.
“My writing just isn’t good enough,” he went on, drawing smoke deeply into his lungs. “I feel like I’m always trying to catch hold of something, but I can never get it properly said.”
“That isn’t true. I mean, it’s not you. You’re better at expressing yourself than anyone I know. It’s words. Nothing real can be expressed in words.”
He expelled smoke forcefully through his nostrils. “That doesn’t help much, Dora. Words are all we writers have.”
She gave him a wry smile. “Yes, I do realize that.”
There was a pause. The smell of smoke combined, not unpleasantly, with his sweat. Dorothy was mesmerized by the bulge his lips made as they pulled on the cigarette, the feral gleam of teeth below the straggly mustache. They repelled her faintly, yet they were part of the magnetism of his smile. And they were continually redeemed by the charm of the way he put things, by the powerful appeal of the intense, lightning-swift eyes.
“You know what scares me more than anything?” he asked at last, leaning over to tap a long column of ash into a saucer that lay next to the bed.
“No, what?”
“My peak is over. I’ve reached my peak and I’ve produced nothing at all that will stand the test of time … nothing good enough to leave a lasting imprint after I die.”
“That’s not true. If there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s that your writing will stand the test of time.”
“I don’t think so. I’m yesterday’s news.”
Dorothy tried her best to reassure him, but it made no difference. His insecurity was like a bottomless pit; however many words she threw into it, she couldn’t plug it. She was dismayed to see him like this: as inadequate and helpless as any other human being. Usually, his intellect and his certainties made him seem invulnerable.
He mashed out the cigarette and put his head on her breasts. “Having you around is no end of a comfort,” he murmured, his mustache tickling her skin. “Stay with me, Dora. Don’t ever leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You hold me up. You’re the only thing standing between me and a smash.” He dropped a kiss on her neck. “I need you. If I don’t watch out, I’ll get to the stage where I can’t write without you.”
“What nonsense,” she murmured, secretly delighted.
“I’m glad I showed you those passages. You really pulled them together. You’ve got good style, a clear mind, and a lethal critical eye … I feel like this book’s our baby.”
He began idly caressing one nipple between his thumb and forefinger, creating sensations in her which were half pleasurable, half painful.
“How can it be our baby when you won’t show me the whole of it?” she grumbled.
His hand paused. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t come off if you saw it before it was ready … Call it a writer’s superstition, if you like.”
“Do you show Jane your work?” It was impossible to keep the jealousy from her voice.
“Yes, I do. She’s quite helpful with the punctuation and grammar, but she doesn’t have your grasp of language.”
Dorothy was mollified. The thrill of reading the rich layers of manuscript while it was still in embryonic form, knowing he was waiting eagerly for her comments, had been no small compensation for the ups and downs of their shared life. The process of editing was a surprising joy. From a blank mind, the right words miraculously appeared and stated themselves. Instinctively, she found better ways of phrasing certain passages. She knew how to give shape to whole sections, knew where elaboration was needed, where to tighten or clarify. She had been able to express her suggestions tactfully enough that he’d accepted them with gratitude. It was a privilege to be part of the process: witness and helpmate in his achievement.
Bertie was getting hard again. He turned toward her, pressing himself against her; there was something blindly beseeching about the way he did it. The immortal author was exactly like a small boy begging for a treat, she thought, suppressing a smile.
“When are you going to write something, Dora?” His voice was growing thick. “You’re lucky to have a fount of quirky and interesting experience to draw on. You should write it up. I keep telling you.”
She pulled away from him and sat upright. “Actually, I detest those written-up things. You know they’re going to be false through and through. ‘Mr. Meakins always wore his hat at a jaunty angle.’ They’re so contrived, they drive me crazy. It’s the same thing that makes me dislike so many novels: the endless accumulation of external detail. Where’s the life in it? Reality isn’t fixed; it’s continual movement and fluctuation. I’d love to find a way of writing that captures it…”
“You could write the first dental novel,” Bertie said, “or the confessions of a modern woman. Though perhaps you’d be better suited to journalism. The trouble with women novelists is they’re only really good when writing about personal experiences. Falling in love, and so on. They aren’t inventive.”
“Ah, invention. Don’t you mean half-truths…? Unreliable.”
If she could engage him in talk about books, perhaps she could avoid making love again. She didn’t have the energy; she knew it would make her sore. She wished, for the hundredth time, that her body didn’t shut down during sex. Holding his hand created such a poignant tingling all over, yet whenever they were naked together, it was as though a shutter slammed down, cutting off her senses. Why?
He put his hand between her legs; his fingers started creeping upward. She fought back a sigh. His insatiability was exhausting; they were both slaves to it. Was it a sign of his great need for her? Or was it—as she was coming to suspect—a more general need: the scratching of an overweening physical urge that also filled in the irksome gap between finishing his work and dinner. Necessary and reinvigorating for him, but anyone could provide it. Any woman’s body would do.
* * *
VERONICA HAD ONE of the large high-ceilinged rooms on the first floor. Its dilapidated grandeur—the long French windows edged with dingy lace curtains, the dusty chandelier and the wide chipped marble fireplace—was barely noticeable beside the piles of clothes, hairbrushes, and cosmetics that lay strewn about. The eiderdown was bunched untidily on the bed and photographs of Veronica’s family covered every available surface. The excessive detritus of femininity made Dorothy feel like a man.
They picnicked on the floor. Veronica had laid out a feast on fine Empire china: cheese, pâté, salad, bread still warm from the oven. A pyramid of blackberries glistened with dissolving sugar.
“Come and join me at my queenly table,” she said, gesturing toward the faded rug. She sank to her knees, a graceful figure in a dusky-pink kimono with a string of chunky cream-colored beads around her neck. She handed Dorothy a plate. “You’re to help yourself. I want you to feel quite at home.”
Veronica ate with unselfconscious appetite, tearing bread and taking food with her hands. For Dorothy, food was usually an uninspiring necessity, tolerated to keep life going. But this meal had an unaccustomed savor: she felt almost intoxicated by the
rich smells and flavors that nourished her senses as well as her body. Was the transformation Veronica’s gift to her?
“This is heavenly, Veronica, and such fun. Everything tastes far more delicious than it would at a table.”
“I am happy you like it. But you haven’t tried the cheese. Have the brie, it’s divine.”
Veronica cut a piece for her. Ripe and creamy, oozing between her fingers as she held it out to Dorothy.
Dorothy took the cheese. “Did you guess why I wasn’t shocked when you told me about Paul?”
Veronica was licking brie from her fingers; she turned eagerly toward this promising opening.
Dorothy lifted her eyebrows a little and paused, waiting for realization to fall. Veronica was looking thoughtful, the little curve of her chin drawn in. The sweetly rounded face dimpled and flushed; she raised her eyes gleefully to Dorothy’s. “Don’t tell me you are also seeing a man who is taken?” she exclaimed.
Dorothy made a wry face. “Yes, he’s married.”
They gazed at each other, mutely delighting in the shared experience.
“What is he like?” Veronica asked, at last.
Dorothy hesitated before the impossibility of conveying a fraction of Bertie’s quality in words. “He’s a writer.”
“What’s his name? Will I recognize it?”
“I expect so. He’s quite well known.”
Veronica said, “You are more than I thought you were … I can’t express how happy I am to have found you.”
“Me, too.”
“I want to know all about the time you spend with him. Is it heaven on earth?”
“It’s heaven and it’s difficult…” Dorothy explained how she had to share Bertie with his wife and his work, and her uneasy sense that she was less important in his life than either of them. “There’s another thing … in the beginning, I really felt he was my partner and my mate, but as time goes on, our needs and views seem more and more mismatched…”
“It’s not unusual to feel like that, believe me. There’s always a barrier between men and women. When the first rapture of being together passes, one is aware, somehow, of an obstruction, a difference … one realizes direct communication is impossible; the two sexes can never meet. I was always uneasy, even when blissfully happy with Paul. I remember being entertaining and charming with him; to all appearances, being entertained and charmed in return. He thought that all my talk and flirting came naturally, and made me as happy as it made him. He had no idea of the struggle, the sheer exhausting effort of bending myself into his masculine way of thinking and staying there, even for a short while.”
“That’s how I feel; you sum it up exactly. It’s such a relief to find someone with the same way of seeing things … it makes me feel that I can go on.”
Veronica broke in, agreeing joyfully.
They fell silent, suddenly intensely aware of each other, but not awkward in the least. On the contrary, there was a strange powerful sense of unsaid things flowing between them.
Suddenly Dorothy exclaimed, without thinking, “This is the best day of my life,” and bit her lip, feeling foolish. As Veronica hurried to throw her arms around her, Dorothy was back in the moment of being a small child standing between banks of flowers in the sunlight, feeling at one with the warm smells and the bees swaying drunkenly across the path in front of her. It was a moment of revelation, surprising and marvelous. In Veronica’s company, Dorothy could feel the reality she had known for so long in solitude, coming out into life.
“What are you thinking?” Veronica asked, drawing back. “Has anyone ever told you that every single one of your thoughts shows on your face? It’s really very appealing.”
Dorothy told Veronica about the bee memory, and then somehow—she wasn’t quite sure how it happened—the story of her pain-shadowed family life came pouring heedlessly out.
Veronica’s small soft hand slid into Dorothy’s while she talked. She listened in silence, her eyes welling up. The tears that trickled down her cheeks seemed to promise not only absolution, but that Dorothy would never again have to bear the bitterness of her grief and guilt alone.
* * *
BERTIE GAVE DOROTHY a proof copy of the new book. She stayed up the whole night to read it, warm in her flannelette dressing gown, her eyes strained by the insufficient gaslight.
The heroine was an intelligent girl, brought up by a limited and unimaginative father to be a “young lady” in the suburbs, which were still ruled by Victorian assumptions. Stifled, she ran away to find freedom in London, where a number of landladies mistook her for a prostitute, and she struggled to find secretarial work. The only person who offered tangible help was the one she understood least: a prosperous older man, whose protuberant eyes indicated clearly to the reader his motivation in being kind to her. Eventually, her father reluctantly allowed her to study biology at a woman’s college. She fell passionately in love with her married science teacher, and didn’t even wait for his divorce before living with him. Her sensuality was portrayed as natural and welcome; their triumphant attraction more important than social convention or economic consideration.
It unmistakably mirrored Bertie’s early life with Jane. Dorothy, reading with a mixture of enjoyment and pain, thought there was something of herself in the heroine as well. Though Dorothy was a less enthusiastic lover, she found distinct echoes of her London life and her conversations with Bertie in the book. No wonder he hadn’t wanted her to see it before it was printed. He had shamelessly taken material from his own life, modified it a little—presenting himself in the best possible light—and retold it. There was something underhanded about it; a cheap trick. His readers, not realizing he had stolen his characters from life, erroneously believed him a creative artist.
She felt exposed and raw, as though a layer of skin had been peeled away. She realized that if you shared the life of a writer, it would be naive not to expect parts of that life to appear in his work. She tried to tell herself not to feel surprised or betrayed, but being defenselessly fished up and put into a book was a shock nothing had prepared her for.
* * *
IN THE RELATIVELY small orbit of London journalism, there were already whispers about H. G. Wells and women. When the novel came out, the heroine’s open admission of desire for a married man created tremors of shock. Critics pounced on it and tore it apart as immoral. An article in The Spectator by St. Loe Strachey, its influential editor, was especially wounding. It claimed that Bertie was a danger to society:
The loathing and indignation which the book inspires in us are due to the effect it is likely to have in undermining that sense of continence and self-control in the individual which is essential in a sound and healthy State. It teaches, in effect, that there is no such thing as woman’s honour, or if there is, it is only to be a bulwark against a weak temptation … If an animal yearning or lust is only sufficiently absorbing, it is to be obeyed. Self-sacrifice is a dream and self-restraint a delusion. Such things have no place in the muddy world of Mr. Wells’s imaginings. His is a community of scuffling stoats and ferrets, unenlightened by a ray of duty or abnegation.
Bertie, showing the article to Dorothy, admitted he didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. He shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. “This outcry could wreck my career. Can’t they see that my books hold important and honest principles? Must they distort everything with their false morality? It’s obvious that women will produce sturdy children only if they are free to choose the mates they desire.”
He got to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. “I’m going to write a defence in The Spectator saying as much. Sexual desire should be celebrated because it leads to the right breeding partner. It’s biologically beneficial to the human race!”
* * *
BEFORE BERTIE HAD a chance to finish writing his defense, the correspondence columns of The Spectator exploded into assault, and condemnation of Bertie’s “poisonous” book was unanimously voiced from church pulpits. Many li
braries refused to keep copies.
Despite his initial defiance, Bertie fell into a depression, a sort of death of the imagination, where he found himself discouraged, misunderstood, and adrift. He looked at his life in a bleak, harsh light: it seemed a catalog of bad judgments, coarse gaffes, and dishonorable behavior.
“Despair is always close to me,” he confided to Dorothy. “In my worst hours, it’s as close as a black tidal wave bearing down on an unsuspecting beach walker. Right now, I’m almost swallowed up by it.”
They were silent for a long time, sitting side by side on the faded sofa in Russell Square. It was a crisp, clear day. There was a subtle change in the light streaming through the large bay windows: it was losing the melted butter quality of summer and becoming whiter, harder. A melancholy unease settled over Dorothy, fine and sad as dust. She took Bertie’s hand. It lay inert in hers, unresponsive to her touch.
The shabbiness of the room had at first been charming; redeemed by high ceilings, a fine carved marble mantelpiece and elegantly molded cornicing. Now, the peeling wallpaper, the dim-globed chandelier, and the faint but unmistakable smell of mildew seemed only squalid. Dorothy longed to be outside, walking the streets of her beloved London. But Bertie refused to go out. He wouldn’t eat. For the first time since Dorothy had known him, he didn’t want to make love.
“My life’s a mess” he said, in a low voice. “My work is a failure; I’m not producing the caliber of book I want … I’m cruel to the people I love best.”
Dorothy shivered. “That’s not true.”
“I’m cruel to Jane. She tries to hide her loneliness and depression, but I know perfectly well how she feels.” He turned to look at Dorothy. “I’m not being fair to you either. You ought to have a husband and a houseful of apple-cheeked children. You’d have splendid children … I’m torn between you and Jane. I don’t give either of you what you need or deserve.”
For a moment, Dorothy imagined herself married to a respectable man and free of Bertie. Free of passion, free to rest … “I’m quite sure I shall never get married,” she said softly.
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