The Comforters

by Muriel Spark

  ‘All right,’ said Caroline. ‘But supposing it doesn’t, what difference does that make?’

  ‘Well, in that case, I think you should try to understand the experience in a symbolic light.’

  ‘But the voices are voices. Of course they are symbols. But they are also voices. There’s the typewriter too — that’s a symbol, but it is a real typewriter. I hear it.’

  ‘My Caroline,’ he said, ‘I hope you will hear it no more.

  ‘I don’t,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Don’t you? Now, why?’

  ‘Because now I know what they are. I’m on the alert now,’ Caroline said. ‘You see, I really am quite better. Only tired.’ She raised her voice a little, and said, ‘And if anyone’s listening, let them take note.’

  Well, well!

  ‘I bet they feel scared,’ said Laurence quite merrily.

  She slipped off her skirt, and slid between the sheets of the divan.

  He thought, ‘And yet, she does look better. Almost well again, only tired.’

  She was dozing off when he left her; he had to run over to Hampstead to see his mother; she had telephoned to him rather urgently. He promised Caroline to be back in time to take her out to dinner. Before he went he reminded her of the tape-recorder.

  ‘Don’t forget to press that lever if anything should happen,’ he said. ‘Sure you’ll be all right?’

  ‘Perfectly O.K.,’ said Caroline drowsily. ‘I could sleep for a fortnight.’

  ‘Good. Sleep well. And if you want anything, you know, just ring my mother. I’ll be over there myself in about twenty minutes.’

  Caroline was very quickly asleep. And even as she slept, she felt herself appreciating her sleep; told herself, this was the best sleep she had had for six months. She told herself to sleep on, for she would wake up presently, and then she would mean business.

  At this point in the narrative, it might be as well to state that the characters in this novel are all fictitious, and do not refer to any living persons whatsoever.

  Tap-tappity-tap. At this point in the narrative … Caroline sprang up and pressed the lever on the dictaphone. Then she snatched the notebook and pencil which she had placed ready, and took down in shorthand the paragraph above; she did not start to tremble until after the chanting chorus had ended. She lay trembling in the darkening room, and considered the new form of her suffering, now that she was well again and committed to health.

  FOUR

  There were chrysanthemums and asters in the bowls, chrysanthemums and asters almost discernible on the faded loose upholstery in the drawing-room. They needed to be replaced, but Helena Manders had never replaced them, in order that the Knighthood, which had occurred when the covers were already past their best, should make no difference. The Manders put up with many discomforts so that the Knighthood should make no difference. The fire was lit because of Laurence coming. No fires till November, as a rule.

  ‘Are you in a hurry?’ Helena said, because now Laurence had arrived and was looking at his watch. He did this because he knew that when his mother wanted to see him about any particular business, she would usually forget the business until he was ready to go, causing him to stay for dinner or to stay the night; or she would forget the business until after he had gone, in which case she would ring him again and he would have to go again.

  Laurence did not mind visiting his parents at Hampstead, he even enjoyed going there to stay for meals, or for days and weeks; only this had to be in his own time, when the time was ripe, when the time came round for him to say to himself, ‘I would like to go over to Hampstead.’ When he was summoned there, he couldn’t be bothered greatly.

  And so he looked at his watch. He said, ‘I’ve only got an hour. I’m dining with Caroline. I would have brought her, only she’s resting.’

  ‘How is Caroline?’

  ‘She says she’s better. I think she is, really.’

  ‘Do you? And the hallucinations, have they disappeared? Poor girl, she wouldn’t tell me much.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Laurence. ‘I don’t know if she’s better. She says she feels better.’

  ‘Not going into a nursing home? That would be best.’

  ‘No. I’m taking her down to Grandmother’s tomorrow, in fact.’

  ‘I am worried, Laurence.’

  She looked worried. Her face had no confidence. There was a ladder in her stocking. She had said she wanted to see him urgently, and within the first five minutes she was coming to the point. There were other signs that she was very worried.

  ‘I asked you to come, Laurence, because I’m so worried.’ He sat on the arm of her chair, he put his arm round her shoulder, and said, ‘Is it to do with Caroline and me?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Laurence got up and poured himself a drink. His mother had not offered him a drink. She was worried.

  ‘Georgina Hogg came to see me yesterday.’

  ‘Oh! What did she want?’

  ‘I don’t know. She told me an extraordinary story. I’m so worried.’ ‘About Caroline? I told you Caroline had left St Philumena’s on Georgina Hogg’s account. Can you blame her?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have sent Caroline to that place. You know what Georgina’s like.’

  ‘Well, Father Jerome agreed —’

  ‘But he doesn’t know Georgina Hogg. You should never have given her that job. What took you to do that? She’s such a frightful advertisement for the Church.’

  ‘I just thought,’ said Helena. ‘One tries to be charitable. I thought. She said a miracle seemed to have brought her back to me. I thought, “Perhaps she has changed.” One never knows, in our Faith. Anything can happen to anyone.’

  ‘Well, Georgina hasn’t changed apparently. Still the same psychological thug as she always was. I think honestly she’s to blame for Caroline’s relapse. She must have touched a raw nerve.

  Helena said, ‘Pour me a drink, Laurence.’

  ‘What will you have?’

  ‘Same as you.

  Laurence gave her a drink as strong as his own, which she didn’t object to on this occasion.

  ‘What’s on your mind, darling? What does Georgina want now?’

  ‘I don’t know. She came to tell me something.’

  ‘Felt it was her duty, as usual? What did she say about Caroline?’

  ‘That’s right, that’s what she said, about it being her duty. She didn’t say much about Caroline but she told me an extraordinary story about my mother going in for some terribly illegal business. She suggested that Mother was a receiver of stolen property.’

  ‘My dear, what made her say that?’

  Helena was apologetic. She didn’t quite know how to tell Laurence what her protected servant had done.

  ‘I don’t quite know how to tell you, Laurence. I thought Georgina had changed. And of course she’s got a justification, an excuse. Caroline didn’t leave her address. She says a letter came for Caroline the day after she left. Georgina took upon herself to open it, just to see the address of the writer, she said, meaning to return it. Then she found the letter came from you. She read it, as she felt that was her duty to me. You see, Laurence, she has an excuse for everything.’

  ‘But that’s illegal. No one has any right to open a letter addressed to someone else. Only the Post Office can do that, when the person it’s addressed to can’t be traced. And even then, officially they only look at the signature and the address on the letter. No one at all has a right to read the substance of a letter addressed to someone else,’ Laurence said. He was fairly raging.

  ‘I told her that, Laurence. I’m worried, dear.’

  ‘What did she mean, she felt it was her duty to you to read my letter to Caroline?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she thought there was something between you of which I wasn’t aware. I put her right on that score.’

  ‘Did you tell her it’s a serious crime to do what she’s done?’ La
urence was on his third whisky.

  ‘Hush, dear,’ said his mother, forgetting his size, ‘I don’t know if we’re in a position to talk about crime to Georgina Hogg. You must tell me all you know about Grandmother. You should have told me right away.’

  ‘Did the Hogg show you my letter, or did she only tell you what I wrote?’

  ‘She offered to let me read it. I refused.’

  ‘Good,’ said Laurence. ‘That keeps our own standards up.’

  His mother smiled a little and looked at him. But she returned to her anxiety. ‘Georgina was very high-minded about what you wrote about her, whatever it was.’

  ‘She didn’t offer to return my letter to me, I suppose? It’s my property.’

  ‘No, she refused,’ said Helena.

  ‘And what’s her excuse for that?’

  ‘Feels it’s her duty. She says that these things are too often hushed up.

  ‘Blackmail?’ Laurence said.

  ‘She didn’t ask for anything,’ said Helena. Then, as if these exchanges were so many tedious preliminaries, she said, as one getting down to business, ‘Laurence, that was true wasn’t it — what you wrote to Caroline about Grandmother?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t think Grandmother’s a criminal. I didn’t say that. Possibly she’s being used by a gang of criminals.’ He did not sound very convinced of this.

  Helena said, ‘I’ve been blind. I’ve been simply inattentive these past four years since my father’s death. I should have made it my business to look after my mother. I should have forced her to accept —’ ‘Where’s Georgina now? Has she gone back?’ ‘No. She has given notice. I don’t know where she’s staying. I was too stunned to ask.’

  ‘What is she going to do about the letter?’ ‘She said she would keep it, that’s all.’

  ‘What is she going to do about Grandmother?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say. Oh Laurence, I’m so worried about your grandmother. Tell me all about it. Tell me everything.’

  ‘I don’t know everything.’

  ‘This about diamonds in the bread. I can’t believe it and yet Georgina was so serious. I like to know where I am. Tell me what you discovered.’

  ‘All right,’ Laurence said. He knew that his mother had a peculiar faith that no evil could touch her. It made her adaptable to new ideas. Laurence had seen her coming round to one after another acceptance where his own vagaries were concerned. Especially now, when she sat worried in her shabby drawing-room, wearing her well-worn blue with the quite expensive pearls, a ladder in her stocking, Laurence thought, ‘She could get through a jungle without so much as a scratch.’

  When he had finished talking she said, ‘When will you leave for Ladylees?’

  ‘Tomorrow, as early as possible. By train; my car’s going in for repair. I’ll hire one at Hayward’s Heath for the few days.’

  ‘Don’t take Caroline.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She isn’t strong enough, surely, to be mixed up in this?’ ‘I should say it would do her good.’

  ‘She will be in your way, surely, if you intend making inquiries.’

  ‘Not Caroline. She’s too cute.’

  ‘Tell Caroline to keep in touch with me, then. Ask her to phone every day and let me know what’s happening. I can depend on Caroline.’

  ‘Whisky makes you snooty,’ he said. ‘You can depend on me too.’

  ‘Wheedle the truth out of your grandmother,’ she pleaded.

  As he started to leave, she said shyly in case there should be any offence, ‘Try to find out how much it will cost us to get her out of the hands of these crooks.’

  Laurence said, ‘We don’t know who’s in whose hands, really. Better not mention it to Father just yet; it may turn out to be something quite innocent, a game of Grandmother’s —’

  ‘I won’t trouble your father just yet,’ she assured him abruptly. ‘He does so admire my mother.’ Then she added, ‘To think that our old trusted servant should do a thing like this.’

  He thought that a bit of hypocrisy— that ‘old trusted servant’ phrase.

  ‘You think I’m a hypocrite, don’t you?’ his mother said.

  ‘Of course not,’ he replied, ‘why should I?’

  ‘Everything O.K.?’

  Caroline woke at the sound of Laurence’s voice. She was very sleepy still; this protracted waking up was also a sign that she was getting better. Muzzily, she was not sure if Laurence had said ‘Everything O.K.?’ or if this was something as yet unspoken, which it was her place to ask. So she said, all muzzed, sitting up, ‘Everything O.K.?’

  Laurence laughed.

  She rose sleepily and went into the bathroom to wash and change, leaving the door open to talk through.

  ‘Any incidents?’ said Laurence.

  She was awake now. ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘Lord Tom Noddy on the air.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Madame Butterfly.’

  ‘And did you remember the tape-machine?’

  ‘Um. I pressed the button. But I don’t know if it’s recorded anything.’

  She sounded diffident. Laurence said:

  ‘Shall I try?’ He was afraid the experiment might upset her, might turn the luck of Caroline’s health.

  ‘Yes, do.’

  He arranged the recording device, and pressed a lever. It gave a tiny whirr, then came the boom of Laurence’s voice. ‘Caroline darling…’ followed by the funny, unprintable suggestion.

  Caroline came out of the bathroom to listen, towel in hand. They were both eager for the next bit. It was a woman’s voice. Laurence looked up sharply as it spoke: ‘That’s a damned lie. You’re getting scared, I think. Why are you suddenly taking cover under that protestation?’

  That was all. ‘Good Christ!’ said Laurence.

  Caroline explained, rather embarrassed. ‘That was my voice, answering back. It seems, my dear, that these visiting voices don’t record. I didn’t really think they would take.’

  ‘What did they say to you? Why did you reply like that? What made you say ‘‘It’s a lie”?’

  She read him the shorthand notes she had taken.

  ‘So you see,’ she said with a hurt laugh, ‘the characters are all fictitious.’

  Laurence fiddled absently with the machine. When she stopped talking, he told her to hurry and get dressed. He kissed her as if she were a child.

  As she made up her face she told him excitably, ‘I have the answer. I know how to handle that voice.’

  She expected him to ask, ‘Tell me how.’ But he didn’t; he looked at her, still reckoning her in his regard as if she were a lovable child. Then he said, ‘Mother’s worried. I’m afraid there’s going to be a big shemozzle about Grandmother.’

  It seemed to Laurence, then, that it was unsatisfactory for Caroline to be a child. He felt the need of her coordinating mind to piece together the mysterious facts of his grandmother’s life. He felt helpless.

  ‘You’ll help me with my grandmother, won’t you?’ he said. ‘Why?’ she said gaily. ‘What are you going to do to your grandmother?’ She looked mock-sinister. She was getting better. Laurence looked from her face to the shorthand notebook on the table, from the evidence of her normality to the evidence of her delusion. Perhaps, he thought, a person could go through life with one little crank and remain perfectly normal in every other respect. Perhaps it was only in regard to the imaginary aural impressions that Caroline was a child.

  He said, ‘Mrs Hogg read the letter I sent to you at St Philumena’s.’

  ‘You mean, she opened my letter and read it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s appalling. In fact, it’s criminal.’

  Caroline smiled a little at this. Laurence remembered the same sort of smile fleeting on his mother’s face that afternoon in spite of her worry. He realized what it was the two women had smiled the same smile about.

  ‘I admit that I’ve read other people’s letters myself. I quite see that. But this is a different case. It’s fright
ful, actually.’

  Having established, with her smile, the fact that she considered him not altogether adult, Caroline said, ‘On the level, is it serious?’ And she began to question him as an equal.

  They switched off the fires and light, still talking, and left the flat.

  At about half past eleven, since they had decided to make a night of it, they went to dance at a place called the Pylon in Dover Street. There was hardly any light, and Caroline thought, Thank God for that.

  For, after dinner at a restaurant in Knightsbridge, they had been to Soho. First, to a pub where some B.B.C. people were unexpectedly forgathered who called Laurence ‘Larry’; and this was a washout so far as Laurence was concerned. His mind was on his grandmother, and the spoiling of his disinterestedness, his peace, by Mrs Hogg. He was on leave, moreover, and did not reckon to meet with his colleagues in those weeks. Next they had gone to a literary pub, where it rapidly became clear that the Baron had spread the story of Caroline and her hysterical night at his flat.

  At the first pub, after they had left, a friend of Laurence had said, ‘That’s Larry’s form of perversion — beautiful neurotic women. They have to be neurotic.’

  It was understood that every close association between two people was a perversion. Caroline sensed the idea they had left behind them when they left this pub. Laurence, of course, knew it, but he didn’t mind; he accepted that, for instance, ‘perversion’ was his friends’ code-word for anyone’s personal taste in love. While Caroline and Laurence were on their way to the second pub, this friend of Laurence’s was saying, ‘All Larry’s girls have been neurotics.’ This was true, as it happened.

  Later, in the taxi, Caroline said to Laurence, ‘Am I noticeably neurotic, do you think?’

  Her eyes were huge and deep, unsettled, but she had the power of judgement in other features of her face.

  He said, ‘Yes, in a satisfactory way.’ And he said presently, ‘All my girls have been neurotics.’

  Caroline knew this but was glad to hear it again from Laurence; his words made articulate her feeling of what was being said in the pub they had left. She knew most of Laurence’s previous neurotic girls; she herself was the enduring one.