A Garden of Trees (4 page)

“How ridiculous,” she said. “Why wouldn't you have had the courage?”

“I've been away so long. I don't seem to know anyone now.”

“How ridiculous,” she said. “You're looking very well.” We walked up the street. She was wearing a huge coat with a stiff collar jutting up the back of her neck, like armour. This was fashionable. “Have you got one of those machines?” she asked.

“What machines?”

“Those sun-tan machines.”

“No,” I said.

“Everyone seems to have a machine,” she said.

Talking to her had always been like playing a game in which only she knew the rules, but now a tiredness gave the impression that even she was playing it more in boredom than for fun.

“I've been to the West Indies,” I said.

“How dreadful.”

“I've been trying to write a book,” I said.

“People are always writing books,” she said.

“And I wanted to be somewhere on my own.”

“Men always want to be on their own,” she said. “It's so depressing.”

I followed her up the steps of her house. Formerly, when she had played the game of conversation as a game and nothing else, I had liked to watch her play it, although I could not play it myself. It had then seemed strange and amusing; and there had been none of this quick sliding off the subject in peremptory denial. Now she was like someone who is learning how to skate and is frightened of being spoken to in case she will fall down. The game seemed to have turned into a rather desperate attempt to keep one's balance.

As she opened the front door she said, “I suppose you must come in, but I do think it's dreadful of you to say that you hadn't got the courage to come here on your own. I should be so ashamed.”

Inside the house my inability to play the game became, as always, oppressive. I had hoped, if it was to be at best a matter of keeping one's balance, that we might give up playing altogether; but we had to have some sort of conversation and I think that this was the only sort of conversation that we knew. It was my fault that it failed. She went to make some tea and we talked through the open door in the kitchen.

“Now tell me what you've been doing,” she said.

“I've told you, I've been . . . ”

“Now don't start telling me about your book, for heaven's sake.”

“No. Well I've been traveling . . . ”

“Nor your travels. It's dreadful that no one can talk of anything except their travels. As if places mattered.”

“What does matter?” I said.

“What a stupid question,” she said.

She brought the tea and we drank in silence. I wondered what this thin ice was upon which everybody was skating, this frightened unmanageable surface which forced the people in the streets into a useless pose of dignity, and Alice into a nervous refusal of any offered contact. As I drank my tea I thought that perhaps she was just bored with me, but then she said: “How nice it is to see you. You're looking wonderfully well.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“It's such a relief to see people who are well. Most people are so dreary.” She had lit a cigarette even before she had finished eating, and she was trying to brush crumbs off her skirt.

“People in London seem to be frightened of something,” I said. “What is it?”

“Frightened?” she said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that they seem to expect to be offended by something, and are trying terribly hard to appear at ease.”

“People are so tired of serious things,” she said.

“Then why are they serious?”

“They are not, it is only you who are serious.”

“It is as if they are always looking over their shoulders to see what is following them, and there always is something following them, because they drag it along.”

“Oh all this talk,” she said.

“But why are they frightened?”

“Well why shouldn't they be frightened? Aren't there enough things to be frightened of? God knows I don't blame them.”

“What things?” I said.

“What things? You've only got to read the papers, and then you'll see.”

I did not expect this. She was standing up and brushing her clothes with the hand that held her cigarette, and the ash was spilling on her shoes. I had not thought of Alice as a person who took much notice of the papers.

“Do you mean Russia and the Bomb and that sort of thing?”

“ . . . and the strikes and communists and food and everything, oh good heavens, don't you use your eyes?”

“But people aren't really afraid of all that, are they?”

“They're crazy if they're not,” she said.

“I'm not.”

“Well you're a baby.”

I changed the conversation. I was thinking how it seemed impossible to talk to anyone now—first the Australian whom I liked but with whom I could not be at ease, then the people in the streets who were unapproachable behind their facades; and now Alice whose words seemed to rattle like skittles knocked down by every statement that I made. So I tried to talk to her of friends and acquaintances and gossip, which was familiar ground between us, but it was she who quickly returned to the conversation as if there were something in it that fascinated her in spite of her apparent distaste, as if the skittles had to be put up again and the game to continue because skittles was the only game that mattered. She had carried the tea things through to the kitchen, and she interrupted me to say: “You don't understand people at all, or else you would not be surprised that they are worried.”

“I'm surprised because I didn't think they thought about serious things,” I said.

“They don't talk about them, thank God, but that doesn't mean they aren't worried. You only notice things on the surface, which is why you are so stupid. People never show anything on the surface.”

“I agree with that,” I said.

“And you aren't worried because you haven't noticed what is going on at all, not at all, or else you have done and are fool enough not to admit it.”

“But all this is on the surface . . . ” I began.

“Oh nonsense,” she said. “Absolute nonsense.”

I did not know quite what we were arguing about. She emerged from the kitchen and I watched her standing bleakly in front of the window. “But you,” I said, “you personally—are worried by it?”

“By what?” she said.

“Well, by the food and the strikes and the communists.”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course I am. It's like always having someone behind you with a knife in your back.”

“Then why don't you do something . . . ” I began.

“Oh,” she said, “you'd never understand. I can't explain it to you if you don't understand.”

I left her soon after this. We had nothing to say to each other. As I walked away down the street with the lights coming on like small explosions I thought that perhaps the loneliness that I felt was felt by everyone, that we were all cut off from each other by a failure of the expectation that once had been between us. For although I had been skeptical of Alice's examples of fear, I had felt some truth in her perception; for in a way it was the unease of this age which, by denying any optimistic or even possible view of the future, had taken from the present its reality and meaning. And so we were all on the surface, on the thin ice surface, and time had become the fear of falling on our backs. Time was anxiety and space was a sliding sphere, and all we could expect was the unexpected. It was as if for the first time the universe had become real to us, as if we felt ourselves like fragments on the edge of relentless stars: and although I had said that this did not worry me, worry is a condition that can exist apart from care. For myself I did not care if there should be no future and no certainty, but others did, and I think it was their concern that had set the distances between us. For in every meeting and every relationship there must exist some ground upon which contact is established, and this ground had slipped into darkness with a turn of the sliding world. Those whom I met knew no means other than the old ones of custom, and I myself, at that time, knew no means at all. I only knew that those around me were on dangerous ground, alone, their eyes closed in a kind of panic, not daring to look too closely at what might lie beneath their feet; and that I, more lonely than most, could not even imagine where I was standing. But above all this I had in front of me the image of Marius and the girl, Marius and the girl who had shoved me on to the ice-rink and who were now the only people who could get me off. I was looking for them as one looks for the arm of some friendly professional, but I did not know where to find them and I did not even know who they were. I was afraid that they would forever have to remain as images, and that, in the way of images, they would grant me no more service than I could grant myself. And it did not seem, as a fragment under the starlight, that I could do very much for myself.

3

But I did meet Marius, and it was through Alice that I found him. A few days after our tea-party I received a postcard from her saying, “If you would like to come here this evening I am expecting a friend who might interest you.” Just that. So I went round early and found Alice alone.

“Who is the friend?” I said.

“What friend?” she said.

“You said something on your postcard about a friend.”

“Oh did I?”

“Yes.”

“Well he may turn up.”

I guessed from this that the friend was of some importance to her and that she hoped he would impress me. Since I hate arranged meetings where impressiveness is expected, I awaited the arrival of the stranger with some anxiety. When the doorbell rang and Alice went to answer it I propped myself defensively against the wall and prepared for the worst. And then Marius came in.

He looked younger than when I had seen him last. I think that each time I saw him throughout his life he appeared to be younger than I remembered him, as if time, in deference to his changing moods, had allowed him to reverse the process of age. He must have been very old I thought, and was now approaching youth with an energy that was apparent in the small movements of his hands and his laughing eyes. Alice introduced us, rather proudly, and I still did not hear his surname. He looked at me and put a hand to his mouth as if to hide his smile.

“Yes,” he said, “we've met.”

“Oh you've met, have you?” Alice said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh dear. Men always seem to have met.” She moved away from us and I could see how disappointed she was. She liked playing the game of the experimental hostess. Marius sat down abruptly and she offered him a cigarette. “Where did you meet?” she said.

“I was being lynched,” Marius said.

“I'm not surprised.”

“No. And then we went to a pub. It was rather strange.”

“Oh very strange,” Alice said.

“Men are always being lynched,” I said. Marius laughed loudly and Alice looked at me with patience.

“You're right,” she said. “You're right, but you'd never know it.”

Marius looked from her to me and back again. I knew that this was going to be a difficult evening, but it did not seem to matter. Marius said, “Are you being lynched, Alice?”

“No,” she said.

“But I'm sure you imagine you are.”

“This is really a very boring conversation,” she said. She opened the door of a cupboard and produced bottles and glasses.

“Alice thinks there's someone behind her with a knife,” I said. I had a great desire to giggle, and I nearly overbalanced as I leaned against the wall.

“A knife?” Marius said. “A sharp knife?”

“Yes.”

“Good at cutting things?”

“Yes.”

“How useful,” Marius said.

“Are you drunk?” Alice said; for in my efforts to maintain my balance I had toppled against some fire-tongs which fell heavily in the grate.

“Perhaps he thinks there's someone underneath him with a poker,” Marius said.

Alice poured out the drinks. She looked tired. Marius continued tentatively “I should like very much to have someone behind me with a knife. I never know anyone who has a knife . . . ”

“Marius,” Alice said, “if you go on like this I shall scream.”

“Dear Alice,” he said, “I should not like you to scream.”

Alice went out of the room to get some ice. Marius moved as if he was going to follow her, and then he changed his mind and came back to me. “I am afraid that Alice is upset,” he said. “I think it was rather a disappointment to her that we had already met.”

“Yes,” I said. He was pacing up and down the room with his hand still up to his mouth.

“I think that now she will want us to hate each other,” he said.

“Hate each other? Will she?”

“She may do. I think she had been expecting something from this meeting. Something else she likes . . . Do you know her well?”

“Not very.”

“She is a kind person, very kind.”

“Then why . . . ?”—But Alice had returned, and I could say no more.

Alice gave us drinks and Marius was polite to her. And then, in a strangely subtle way, he tried to get her into a good humour. He said all the things that she must have wanted him to say—all the things that I could never remember; and gradually, as he talked, saying nothing but saying it pleasantly, she came round to him and appeared at ease again. I listened to them, and I wondered how sincere Marius was being, and whether indeed Alice was accepting his efforts sincerely. I could not tell what was behind their formal interchange of jokes and gossip, but I sensed, as the evening progressed, that there was some battle between them that was being fought out on ground of which I had no knowledge with forces that were camouflaged from the uninitiated eye. They circled round each other like rival celebrities, but in spite of Marius's efforts—or perhaps because of them—I felt that Alice's geniality was a trifle forced. I did not bother to enquire into this too closely because sincerity did not seem to matter on an occasion like this, and besides, I was too bewildered by the surprise of meeting Marius again. I felt as I had felt the first time that I had met him—as if in some way I was separate from myself—and my only care was that this time I should be able to stay with him and learn about him, and if possible find the girl. His conversation with Alice was quite unreal to me. The battle between them touched me, however, whenever I was left alone with either one or the other of them—the first occasion having occurred when Alice left the room to get some ice. Later, when Marius had gone out to meet a friend of his, as he had said, and we had arranged to join him again in a few minutes, Alice turned to me and carried the battle for another short skirmish into the open.