‘I’d like to do what I can for you at any time,’ he said, and then he shook my hand.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘and good luck.’
I watched the car drive away. Then I went out and sat in the gardens at the back of the Savoy Hotel.
9
There was no need to stay in London any longer. If we had finished lunch a little earlier I could have caught the afternoon train. It was too late now, I would have to go first thing in the morning instead. I would fill the rest of the day by seeing to tickets, by packing my bag and settling my bill at the hotel. I knew that this would take a small space out of time, but I pretended to myself they were large matters, requiring much energy and foresight. I had sat for nearly an hour in the gardens by the Embankment, and the light was fading now, and it was cold. I got up and walked away, my collar turned up, my hat low over my eyes. This time tomorrow evening I would be in Paris, anyway. And Hesta would be there.
I tried to arrange in order the things that remained to me, but my mind was a queer contradiction of itself, and my thoughts wandered from Hesta to my father, and from my father to Jake. Mostly I think they clung to Jake, his hand on my shoulder, his smile, and his voice that came to me now as from a great distance: ‘You’ll be all right,’ he had said. ‘You’ll be all right.’
I wondered what this belief in me had meant, and whether he had known how things would be.
It seemed to me his words had gone for nothing, and here was I, alive to no great purpose, and there was he, a poor fled shadow of a man, drowned and forgotten in the Baie des Trépassés.
I went on walking along the Embankment, and then I turned upwards again, and came to an Underground station. There I took the Tube to Russell Square, and found myself once more before the hotel and the page-boy standing on the steps.
In spite of shock of the breaking up of an idea, life had to go on, even after this, in irritating ways.
I discussed the weather pleasantly with an old man in the lounge, I announced my intention of leaving in the morning, I smiled cheerfully to the woman in the office, and picked up an evening paper.
I seemed to hear Grey telling me, slowly and calmly, what I had always known, that I was an ordinary man. I was no genius, and I had been born without the gift of writing. All that had been a phase, he had said, and the casting aside of boyhood. Even before I read my father’s poem I knew this. I knew from the very beginning, when I had covered my doubting fear with a brave show of carelessness and a gesture of pretence. I knew that if I had been born to write it would have come from me effortless and unrestrained, compelled by some dim travail of its own, forceful, like a strange necessity.
It would have been unhindered by the turmoil of emotion and the touch of passing things, it would have rested immune from contact, precious and untended.
Instead of this I had blustered and sworn, too anxious and too eager, arrogant in my determination, seeing myself as a figure, watching my own antics. I was an ordinary man.
So I turned the pages of my paper and I saw that in Wood Street, Ponders End, this day a woman of the name of Marsden had been knocked down by a tram and killed, leaving two children of five and three; but what was that to me, I thought, what was that to me?
Grey would be leaving his office now, he would remember perhaps, just before he went, to tell his secretary to send a certain MS. to my address. And so out of the building, and into his car, sighing, a little weary from his day’s work, thinking no more of me.
It seemed that Aston Villa had played Sheffield United this afternoon, and had won by two goals to nil. Which perhaps had caused excitement in many homes.
I sat in the lounge and waited for the gong to sound for dinner; then I had dinner and after that I sat again in the lounge, and so the evening wore away.
My MS. arrived by the last post in the evening, and when I packed my bag I placed it as carefully as Hesta had placed it before, at the bottom of the case, but this time my father’s poems were on top. Then I covered them both with my pyjamas and Hesta’s dressing-gown; so that was the finish of them and the passing of my phase.
When I left London the sun shone and there was a strange clarity and brilliance in the sky, the morning air brisk and keen, seeming the forerunner of a lovely day. The journey to Paris was long, interminable to me, who had bought no books and no papers, and must stare out of the window and watch the passing scenery.
I had not wired to Hesta, but she would be there.
As yet I had made no plans in my mind for either of us. Something would have to be done. I thought that we would not go on living in Paris. That belonged to the phase, and the phase was over. There would have to be some little adjustment of myself before my mind was properly attuned to the new condition of things. The old restlessness and hesitation, the weakness and the indecision, these would have to go. I would start again in a while with a fresh outlook. The sort of life we had been leading was no good to her. I must recognize that. It was no good to me either. I did not want to grasp at life any longer, to try first one thing and then another, to be under the control of a suggestion and a mood. I was weary of uncertainty. I wanted to be sure. I wanted to see my life ahead of me as settled and secure. The old nonsense of excitement and danger was no more than a fable, an invention for children, a continuation of a dream.
I thought of the stability of London, and the strength of it, and then the careless indiscrimination of Montparnasse, those friends of Hesta’s, the wandering in and out of cafés at all times, the lacking of method, of any proper concentration. I would take Hesta away from all that. We would be married, we would have a home somewhere, some definite foundation. It was no good hanging about and playing at life. This was what we had been doing all the year, playing at life. We had not begun at all. Hesta and I would be married. I remembered once, long ago, she had said something about wanting a baby. I don’t believe I listened much at the time. I wondered why. Perhaps I had been thinking of other things. Maybe that was what Hesta needed in life, maybe that was necessary to women - having children. I had not considered it before. She did not seem to care as much for her music as she had. Perhaps that was only a phase, too. Perhaps Hesta was an ordinary woman like I was an ordinary man.
One day, Grey had told me, I should be glad of this. At the moment it seemed ridiculous and a little sad - ordinary men and women, going on and living their lives. The picture of this clung to me as the train swung through the dull flat country of northern France, and the man who sat opposite to me, his grey hair, a paper in his hands, and a quiet woman at his side, yawning, blinking her eyes as we passed by the station of Amiens; they were like us, I thought, only they had travelled a little farther.
The man yawned, too, and folded his paper. He put his spectacles away in a case. ‘We have a good two hours yet,’ he said; ‘we might go along to the restaurant car later and have some tea. They do you well on these French trains.’
The woman, his wife, smiled, and nodded, fumbling with the magazine on her knee, pretending she had no wish to rest. The man settled himself more comfortably in his corner, he sighed, and closed his eyes, he composed his features for sleep. Perhaps he had written a book, too, when he was young, and had sailed in a ship, and had ridden across the mountains. Once, long ago, he had worshipped the body of that woman, and they had been lovers. I watched his jaw relax and his head sink from the high cushion to rest upon his hand, and she stretched out and placed her coat over his knees in case he should be cold.
And he went on sleeping, aware of her care for him, a shadow of a smile upon his face, safe in his corner. I looked out upon the rushing plains, the long white roads, the thin avenues of trees, and I wondered if it was really as pitiful as it seemed, this returning of mine as a writer who had failed, or whether it meant no more to the course of my little life than a shadow means, cast in early morning by a cloud on the surface of the sky.
I took a taxi from the Gare du Nord to the Rue du Cherche-Midi. The train was punctual, arriving
at six-fifteen. I had not prepared anything to say to Hesta. I was tired now, weary from the journey and the reaction of the previous day. I did not want to have to make excuses for myself, speeches of defence, protests at fate and fortune; I only wanted her to put her arms round me and to understand. I would be a boy again, I would lay my head in her lap, saying nothing, feeling for her hands. When the taxi drew to a standstill against the pavement I glanced up at the window, but there was no light, and I had to face the disappointment of her not being there.
I paid off the taxi and let myself into the house. I went slowly upstairs, hoping perhaps that the absence of light would mean she was resting in the other room, but when I came there and felt for the switches on the wall, I saw that she was not there, and both the rooms were empty.
I threw my bag down on the floor and wandered between the two rooms, trying to make the familiarity of them come to me as a consolation. Somehow they did not give out the warmth I had expected; they were friendless, drear.
Her things were not spread about the bed, there was no ash upon the floor, no stray sheet of music on a chair, no general disorder that was part of her presence.
The rooms were too tidy, too cold; they looked as if they had been left a very long time to their own company, and had gone back to their original silence and formality, forgetful of the atmosphere we had created. The bed was not our bed, it was a piece of furniture, stiff and absurd. People had never loved one another there. I sat in a chair and lit a cigarette, helpless suddenly, aware I was alone. I felt as though I were waiting for something to happen, and I did not know what it would be. I went on sitting in the chair and it was dark outside, and soon the cafés would be filled with people for dinner, and the business of evening would be started, but I did not know what I should do. I thought that if I went on waiting Hesta would come.
Then I began to feel hungry, and this was an irritation to me, because if I went out to get some food I might possibly miss her returning, and our meeting would be spoilt, for I wanted her to come in like this, into the dreary room and find me lonely and hungry, unwelcomed, a wretched homecoming, and the realization of this would hurt her, I hoped, so that the sight of her suffering would cause me to forget my own pain.
I knew that I should have sent her a wire, but this was no excuse to me in my present state. I felt that instinctively she should have guessed of my return.
Then hunger proved too much for me, and I left the house, and so out into the street again, and across the Boulevard Montparnasse to the Coupole, where I had dinner.
I looked about for some sign of Hesta or her friends, but they were nowhere, and afterwards I walked up to the Dôme and to the Rotonde, but they were at neither of these places.
It was beginning to rain, and the discomfort of this added another chill to my depression, and I walked up and down, hoping that in some way I should make myself ill, and she would come back and find me thin and wretched, stretched on the bed, delirious, perhaps dying . . . I put my hand to my side and coughed. Already I was ill, already I was suffering. I went back to the Rue du Cherche-Midi, wondering if I should find her there waiting for me, reproaching herself, having seen my bag on the floor and now my things unpacked, the lights turned on.
There wasn’t anybody, though, and the silence of the rooms mocked me, sneering at me for my pretence at make-believe. So I bent and undid my case, and threw my things anyhow on to a chair. I came to my MS. and my father’s poems, and at the sight of these I sat staring for a while, lost in the dreams of a phase that had gone.
Then I opened the door of the wardrobe and I was surprised for a minute to see how empty it seemed because of the absence of my things, and as I looked I became aware that it was bare for another reason, and that it was not only my clothes that were gone, but hers too, dresses that she wore, a heavy coat, a suit that usually hung behind my own.
I opened the drawers beneath the dressing-table, and these were thin too, scanty of her things, brushes and creams, a box of powder, the litter that was hers, now absent, swept away.
I stood in the centre of the room, looking from the gaping wardrobe to the bare dressing-table, and I tried to make some sense to my mind from all this, but my brain was numbed and strange, and all I could do was to glance down foolishly at a little used lipstick in my hands, which I had taken from the empty drawer.
When I awoke the daylight was flooding the room from the window. I had forgotten to close the shutters before I fell asleep. I looked at my watch and I saw that the time was half-past nine. I had lain in the bed dressed as I was and had slept there, until the light had wakened me.
I remembered with a little shock of realization that here I was in my room in the Rue du Cherche-Midi, and Hesta was not beside me. I sat up on the bed and lit a cigarette and tried to think. Perhaps she had been lonely and had gone to stay with Wanda. Perhaps she had been frightened at living alone in the rooms by herself. I had sent her a letter the first day of my arrival in London, and nothing after that. She must have known that letters were not my thing, she surely had not expected to hear from me every day. She knew I would come back. That was all that mattered. I had not even bothered to give her the address of my hotel. I had not thought all this came into our lives. We knew one another. She would wait and I would come back.That was all. It was simple enough.
Yes, of course she had gone to stay with Wanda. They had made up a party somewhere. She thought I was still in London.
I got up, uncertain, anxious in my mind, and I opened the window wide and looked down into the street, as though I expected to see her there, staring up at me, waving her hand. And there was only the street and the sound of distant traffic, and a woman brushing the steps of a shop with a broom.
I began to shave, watching a strange face in the glass that was not mine, and the shudder of apprehension grew upon me, holding me fast with cold still hands.
I heard a taxi hoot some way up the street, and the hooting drew nearer, and then there was the screech of brakes as it drew to the pavement in front of the house.
I stood still where I was, the shaving-brush in my hands, and I did not move.
I heard a door slam below and the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Yet the taxi did not go away, it continued where it was in the street below. I wondered why she had not sent it away. The door of the other room opened, and I heard her walk across the floor. She did not come into the bedroom. I hesitated a moment, and then I went to the door, the soap melting on my face, the brush still in my hands.
Hesta was bending over the table. I could not see what she was doing. I waited, wondering whether I should speak. Then she turned suddenly, looking over her shoulder, and she stood up, and stared at me.
We went on looking at each other without speaking.
‘You’ve come back,’ she said, and her voice trailed off, odd, uncertain.
‘Yes,’ I said.
I smiled, and then moved towards her, wondering why we must be unnatural to one another and strained.
‘I came back last night,’ I said:‘I wondered where you had gone.’
I saw she had a piece of paper in her hands. She laid it aside, it was blank, and it fluttered to the floor.
‘I was just going to write you a letter,’ she said.
‘I never gave you my address in London,’ I said; ‘it was stupid of me, you might have wanted it, in case anything had happened.’
Then I wondered why she should write me a letter if she did not know where to send it.
‘You couldn’t have posted it, anyway,’ I said.
‘I was going to leave it here for you,’ she said.
I frowned, puzzled by her words.
‘I don’t see there was any need for that,’ I said.
She got up and went and stood by the mantelpiece. She fingered a little ornament, putting it in its place. Her face was different, queer somehow, and strained. I knew then that I had to ask a question, that I could not go on pretending to myself that everything was all
right.
‘What’s happened?’ I said. Then her eyes swept my face, lost and strange.
‘You shouldn’t have gone away,’ she said; ‘I told you at the time and you didn’t listen. You shouldn’t have gone away . . .’
The soap was dry and harsh on my face now, but I did not bother to wipe it off.
I went over to take hold of her, but she shook her head and pushed me with her hands.
‘No,’ she said, ‘no, it’s no good.’
Her voice was hard, she stared past me, over my shoulder.
‘Tell me,’ I said, and I fingered her dress, not looking at her. She waited a minute, as though searching for words, and when she spoke it was not her speaking, but somebody else.
‘We’re not going on any more,’ she said; ‘we’ve come to the end of this.’
‘How do you mean?’ I said.
She said: ‘It isn’t any good any more. It’s all over. That’s what I came to write and tell you. It’s all over.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, and I took hold of her hand and held on to it, as though this were some measure of safety.
‘I don’t understand.’
Her voice went on, dull and monotonous, repeating the same thing.
‘I told you not to go away,’ she said; ‘I knew what would happen. It’s no use saying I’m sorry. Sooner or later it was bound to be. You didn’t see that, you just went away and you didn’t seem to mind.’
‘You mean you don’t love me,’ I said, ‘it’s finished, it’s gone?’
‘Love,’ she said, and she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. A funny sort of laugh that wasn’t hers.
‘I don’t know anything about love,’ she said, ‘but whatever was is spoilt and done with. We don’t belong to each other like we did. I couldn’t help it, it happened. Life’s like that, it’s queer. I’m sorry. I can’t say anything more than that, can I?’
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