Nothing But the Truth

by Sam Lock

  ‘Mind your own business!’ he suddenly blurted out – pushing his head out of a partly open window: as if he was full of a kind of anger. After which, he slammed the window shut, then turned savagely into the room to find his notebook and to throw it into a corner; where he then stamped upon it; as if in revolt against the consciousness that it had come to represent.

  Then, with a sudden, enormous surge of energy, he went out and down the staircase; leaving his door open behind him and switching the hall lights on as he went.

  What he was wanting to do he didn’t know; or where he was wanting to go – but when he reached the main entrance-door of the building he stopped, and fell panting against it.

  For a while he clung there, with one hand on the handle of the door-lock, as if preparing to race out into the street; but then, as quickly as it had arisen, the anger in him subsided; and almost blindly, he groped for a heavy metal bolt that was seldom used, and thrusting it vigorously upwards, double-locked himself in.

  With his face pressed tightly against the door, Jason waited for the quick throb of his breathing to lessen. Then he turned to face the empty hallway, and the flight of stairs he had climbed so often. And as he did so, the memory came to him of Arnold’s curious, ginger-wigged figure; accompanied by the sharp sound of his high-pitched, voice; asking him if he had perhaps been out again with his ‘arty-tarty’ friends. And Jason knew then that the point of crisis in him had passed, and that he had not done whatever it was that he might have done that night; and with slow, deliberate steps he returned cautiously to his rooms.

  XIII

  It was more than a week before Jason was able to relate to what had happened to him that night.

  ‘And even now I am finding it difficult,’ he said, as he began to write of it in his notebook. ‘To have been in the grips of something so negative and so much larger than myself. To have been so compelled – so driven towards an action that I knew so surely must be destructive; and that made me want to stamp out, made me want to obliterate, any awareness I might have of it. Even to stamp upon this book of mine in which I am writing now, and which, I can say quite truthfully, I have come to treasure: because what has been said in it means that I am still able to “read” my life, and so acquire for it some meaning.

  ‘And that is everything, isn’t it? to give one’s life that. People, it seems to me – men – women – will forgo everything for the sake of it. They may not think that they will. They may tell themselves that sex and money come first in the natural order of things, but the fact is that they don’t. The religious instinct, if one speaks about it in the very broadest sense, is what comes first for us – is what counts most for us, because that is what we would seem to be here for on this earth, to give meaning to our lives, and through that to the world.

  ‘Anyway, it is now almost two weeks since I passed through what must surely have been the most difficult moment of my life; when, without knowing why, I felt drawn towards so dark, so utterly negative a deed that I can hardly bring myself to think of it – let alone to write about it here, as I am attempting to do, now, on this page. And the curious thing is that there has been no focus, no object, upon which this urge has been projected. It is not as if I have had negative desires in me that have been directed towards people; or towards things, or animals even – that exist outside myself. And yet I do know (oh dear! I can hardly write this down) – I do realise, that blood is involved; because the sight of blood, the smell, the touch of it, is now so very present in my mind; and is always there: is always lurking, hovering – threatening. Not right now. Not as I am writing this; for it is only when I write that it goes away; whenever I am making myself conscious of it in a heightened sense, which one can do through the use of words. And to be absolutely accurate in my expression, and to tell an exact truth of the ‘nothing but’ variety, it – the awareness of blood – has certainly been less present in me during the past week or so, less than it has for quite a while; for quite a few months, perhaps.

  ‘I won’t say – I won’t think – that the crisis I experienced, and that ended with my locking myself in – or with my bolting myself in – has brought me out of danger. I am not so stupid as to imagine that that perhaps could be the case. For at the end of each day the night must always return, and I know that that must be true of things of the mind; although quite how I know it I am uncertain.

  ‘Whatever, to report further on my condition … I have now trimmed my beard more carefully than I had been doing and have trimmed my hair as well – although not yet gone to the barber as I need to do and as I ought to have done. I have even discarded the old, striped scarf I had taken to wearing, and I have ventured out, when I have ventured out, without the pair of thick winter mittens I had taken to putting on, and that I had been keeping on for most of each day, even though the weather has been so mild for what is now the end of October.

  ‘And – yes – what has been of significance to me is that I have told my wife, Jill, that I might have the children here at Christmas. Not “for” Christmas, I didn’t say that; but during their holidays. I even rang to tell her this. Even spoke to her mother about it, who happened to answer the call, and who was at first extremely cold, but then less so. And Jill, when I spoke to her, seemed so pleased – because, she said, the children would be that; because they are constantly asking after me and are wanting to come and see me.

  ‘Yes, that was significant, certainly. But did it make me feel closer to my family: make me feel more fond of them?, is a question I need to ask. And the answer that anyone reading this will be looking for is that it did, I suppose. But the truth I am afraid to say is almost the opposite … Yes, I do feel more human for it, if you like; and I do feel relieved to know that to a small extent I have been able to fit in more with society’s collective modes of behaviour. But it would be a lie to say that I have been drawn closer to either my children or my wife.

  ‘The truth that wants to come out is this – that I no longer wish to feel close to anyone, not in any intimate sense; and that I either do not want that form of tie, that form of closeness, or that I fear it. Or (which is very possible, I suppose), that I fear for anyone who might become involved with me, and so grow close to me. Which is why, no doubt, that on certain days and at certain times, I still walk the streets alone: still drawing close to people in the shops; half wanting to feel their warmth, to smell their presence. Because they are people I do not know and shall never know, and therefore the question of any more intimate form of closeness is something I do not have to consider.

  ‘Now, some further notes on my condition …

  ‘I am eating and drinking less – and that’s a good thing as well, because it means I have lost a little weight. Not much, but a little. And I have even telephoned my publisher and half apologised to him in case he had been offended by what I had said to him when we last spoke. And I am missing my landlord, of course – although why I say “of course”, I really don’t know, since it is hardly something I would have said when he was alive. His must be a very pervading spirit, for it is ever present, here in this house; in its hallway and on its stairs; and there is scarcely a day goes by when I do not hear his high-pitched voice and chatter … Also – and this is important to me, for some reason that I don’t think I can explain – I’ve seen John and Billy twice during the past ten days. On the first occasion, I invited them here for a drink, with the idea that if things happened to go well, I would then invite them out for supper.

  ‘They arrived in their suits; freshly scrubbed: their ties neatly knotted; and to begin with were stiff and formal, which made it difficult for me to relate to them. They kept glancing about the room; kept looking at my books; at my letters; at my clothes – which, as usual, were strewn across the backs of various pieces of furniture. But gradually, helped by a few drinks, they became quite talkative, and we enjoyed each other’s company a lot.

  ‘The second time we met, they insisted that I visit them at their flat – which is ve
ry small, and which is tucked beneath the heavy mansard roof of a Victorian mansion in South Kensington. And there they were more relaxed, and prepared a much better meal for me than I had provided for them; when, as I had hoped that we would, we had eaten out at a local restaurant.

  ‘John knows and reads a lot – far more than I had imagined; and Billy, who is delightfully curious, asks a lot of questions. However, the thing that really surprised me was that they quarrelled. Why had I not expected that, I wonder? Why should not two men who live together quarrel? I was surprised to find that I had never imagined such a thing. Anyhow, they did – and it was all over a friend of Billy’s called Damien, or something; who John said was no good, and someone he thought Billy ought not to be seeing.

  ‘“He’s no good,” John had said. “I know. He’s just negative” – and then had said no more; which, for a while, made Billy sulk.

  ‘But it wasn’t for long, and we were then able to enjoy ourselves in much the same way that I am able to enjoy myself when I am with Joseph – who has been out of London, by the way. Not on holiday (that is something in which he never indulges – mainly because he can’t afford it), but because his father has been ill – dying, I think he said he was – so I’ve not seen anything of him, of Joseph, for some time, and there has been none of his Epistles to the Ignorant, as a result.

  ‘All in all then, life has been just a little sweeter of late: just a little more normal, I suppose I have to call it, much as I dislike using that word.

  ‘Now, some plans I am making for myself …

  ‘I have considered – indeed, am still considering – going to see a doctor, or to see a psychiatrist, rather; or is it an analyst? to find out if there is anything that can be done to help me rid myself of my troubles. But the will to take that step has been lacking … And that is what tells me that my difficulties are not yet over. That even now; even when there are at least signs of some improvement at last, I still lack the will to act in that particular way: to go to see someone who would at least tell me what might be wrong with me – if something is wrong with me that is put-rightable, that is. But I half fear, half know, that whoever I go to see I shall be sent packing: shall be told that mine is a case of the “better not to know than to know” variety – which I understand is a thing that does exist; and that I shall simply have to put up with (and manage to somehow make some kind of peace with) this monster that inhabits me.

  ‘Concerning the time of year …

  ‘November is now not far away. The trees in the parks have already shed great numbers of their leaves, and the city has taken on that curious moment of pause that it always manages to achieve before the final weeks that lead up to Christmas. People who have gardens, or who have balconies, have been pulling up their faded, summer plants – or what is left of them – and turning over the earth, and putting in the daffodil bulbs and crocus bulbs and snowdrops. Do I have any such bulbs that I might plant in my own mind? – to help see me through the wintry months ahead? Not really. Not even the thought that I might be having the children here for a while. Nor, for that matter, does the idea of going down to Hampshire to see my parents, which I have arranged to do before the end of the month.

  ‘No, there is nothing, it seems, that I can safely count upon as being of comfort to me; and I have no choice it would appear but to accept that. What is worrying me, and has been for some days, is that I have been hearing things inside my head – words, that is, that have kept repeating themselves. I have no idea of where they come from or who wrote them – they could even be a translation by the sound of them – but they speak fearsomely and with irony about the “mighty justice of the gods” – who, they constantly say to me –

  Will lead us to the edge of some abyss,

  Then cause us to commit great crimes

  For which they will not pardon us.’

  At the foot of the page Jason had added the following note:

  ‘I am glad to have written what I have written. To some, self-ignorance may be bliss, but to me, it is fast becoming the opposite.’

  PART FOUR

  XIV

  The Lady who lived opposite – that is to say, who lived in the house across the street from the one in which Jason lived – was not, as Arnold had imagined she might be, the keeper of some exclusive, upper-class brothel; she was the widow of a wealthy, titled stockbroker, who called herself, incorrectly, Lady Cynthia Barron. And as for the various men that Arnold had commented upon, and that he had seen calling at her door, these were either Lady Cynthia’s two brothers, both of whom were as plump and pink as Lady Cynthia was herself, or it would have been a rather dashing figure by the name of Captain Frederick Smythe, who was Lady Cynthia’s lover.

  In the years before the war, ‘Captain Smythe’, as Lady Cynthia called him (for even in private she seldom used his Christian name), had been an officer in the army; and during the war itself, was said to have done secret work for ‘Intelligence’; for which he was admirably suited, since he was devious and rather clever.

  Lady Cynthia thought the world of him, however, and was always showing him off to her circle of friends – announcing to dinner guests as they arrived that ‘Captain Smythe is going to be here and it’s going to be fun’ – which, indeed, it usually was; for between them, they generated a breezy air of excitement; and one that suggested to people (although this was seldom brought to the very forefront of their minds) that once they had left, and the party was over, fun would take place of a quite different kind.

  ‘Naughty stuff,’ Lady Cynthia might say, if she happened to meet a close friend of hers the next day; followed by a quick wobble of her cheeks, and then by a similar one of her hat (if the meeting took place in the street, that is); and also with a swing of the long, free-flowing clothes that she wore, and that were usually in different shades of blue; and that duly matched, in a remarkably subtle way, the soft water-blues of her eyes; that were ever adrift and afloat in the shifting seas of her too heavily powdered features.

  Unlike the other women in her circle, whose main pastime was playing bridge, the interesting thing about Lady Cynthia was the real passion she had for the opera; and whenever Captain Smythe came to spend the night with her, he had grown accustomed to the idea that before they retired to bed, she would play long stretches of Wagner to him on her record player: and this, he had come to understand, was meant to prepare for the events that followed. And it could have been that Lady Cynthia had things in mind for her lover for which he was unprepared, for what he didn’t know was that the night attire she wore, and that so cleverly veiled and subtly flattered the sweeping curves of her over-large figure, had been modelled upon a stage-costume she had once seen at Covent Garden, worn by the heroine of Lohengrin; in which, of course, the famous ‘Wedding March’ is played.

  However, if the ‘thing’ about Lady Cynthia was the passion she had for opera, then the thing about Captain Smythe was the fierce passion he had for old motor cars – fast, noisy ones in particular; and it had been much remarked upon in the area that his frequent arrivals at the house – and his departures from it as well – were accompanied by the snarls and roars of these old cars of his: sometimes, if he was anxious to get away, in the very early hours of the morning.

  ‘Yes, I know they are loud,’ Lady Cynthia had once answered in his defence, ‘but there it is, he loves them … Besides,’ she had added, ‘he has such verve, such vivacity’ – which, on the whole, was true.

  What Lady Cynthia rarely spoke about, however, was her lover’s lack of dependability, in that she could never be sure whether he would keep his appointments with her or not; and when someone had once dared to suggest to her that the cause of this might be that he had other ladies to visit, she had spoken curtly in reply, saying that what the Captain did was his own business. ‘And in any case,’ she had added haughtily, ‘he is perfectly delightful, and a splendid lover as well.’

  In the sense that they had not been introduced to each other, Arnold and Lady C
ynthia had never met; but if he had been sufficiently aware of her to have had ideas about who she might be, then she had been equally so of him. For in much the same way that Arnold had spoken about his neighbour as being ‘That woman who lives opposite, and who wears long strings of pearls and enormous, floppy blue hats’, so she, when speaking of him, would describe him as ‘That funny old thing who lives across the road from me, and who wears what I am convinced is an ill-fitting, ginger wig’; which she had then embellished with, ‘Exactly who he is, I don’t know; and I don’t know that I want to know; much as he has an unusual looking woman-friend, that I see with him at times; who wears bright red lipstick, and dumpy, narrow-brimmed hats; and who is rather smart, I think; if a little too masculine, perhaps, for my idea of a woman.’

  ‘But you know, my dear,’ she had gone on, ‘she is very interesting, I find; and so is he, perhaps. But then, we do have interesting people here in Chelsea, you know. We always have had. There is nothing dull or suburban here … Have you seen that wicked Max Adrian, in the revue at the Royal Court, by the way? He is extraordinary in it, I am told; and the whole thing so smart and so sophisticated; which accounts, of course, for its success.’