An Accidental Man (46 page)

J. P. H. Leferrier

PS Do not misunderstand what I say above. Your mother and I view with horror and misery and a fear which rests upon but too much clear evidence, the consequence, to you of any direct confrontation with the law of this country. In prison here your very life could be in danger. I have, since writing this letter, talked yet again to Mr Livingstone. He says that it is now becoming a mercifully accepted thing that evidence from a psychiatrist can be offered to a tribunal. This evidence need not be of mental breakdown but may be very various, and can indeed amount simply to a careful restatement of the objector's own opinions.

Little Karen,

you know how I feel that I feel about you and how I have been feeling that it was about time too, O Lord. But also I now thoroughly intuit and can face that you do not love me and what is more love another. You half told me and the rest I, Richard sleuth, discovered. I don't feel deceived. Your tiny petulant soul has always been open to me really. All which being so I think I cannot bear that yachting trip, can you? In any case it was getting so overrun with Tisbournes and such it was hardly worth having, was it? I am going to pretend the yacht has broken down. Thus we can phase the thing out and save our faces. Why do we both have to live in this blaze of publicity instead of the decent obscurity of marriage? As for marriage, I doubt if I, Pargeter, am made for it. I have been so unhappy for so long I have become resigned. Do not do me the wrong of pitying me. In a way I enjoy it all, and for once am producing, I trust, a conclusion which is not fraught with lies and cries. That it was fun while it lasted is probably the best the likes of me can ever say, and in this case, it scarcely got going at all. I don't think, after our last rather stormy interview and your flight to the country, that this letter will surprise you much, and I doubt if it will distress you much either. What, after all, were you up to? Fate and I are letting you off easily. I myself am a hopeless unworkable human being designed to be miserable and to cause misery. Better steer clear. Sorry, pretty Karen, sorry.

R.

Dear Andrew,

for reasons which I shall shortly explain to you I return your cheque. You shall not buy Kierkegaard. I may be a businessman but I am not a crook. And especially not in this context, about which I have been thinking. May I come and see you in Oxford on Thursday? Could I stay the night in college? I have something to say to you.

Yours

Oliver

Dear Mr Gibson Grey,

how awfully kind of you it was to spend so much time with poor Norman last week, he greatly appreciated it, or would you know if he could fully realize what you have done for him, I think your visits have done him a lot of good, he is much more alert and looking as if he was trying hard to remember things all the time. He is to leave hospital now and come home. The hospital thinks he may partially recover, anyway he can do some simple work. The welfare people are all very kind and will arrange his training for something. It is a change in our lives. It is a funny thing to say, but he is so much nicer now than he used to be. Do you think his novel could be published, we could use the money. Thank you for helping my poor husband,

Yours truly

Mary Monkley

Ann dear girl,

this is to tell you that such shadowy things as there were between me and Richard have been definitely broken off. I didn't really intend anything, it was the yacht that brought it on! My flirting with R. had a purely Machiavellian purpose, as you know. (I only hope I haven't overdone it.) And I don't think Richard really intended anything either, honestly! It was all so stupid. I felt I should write at once and tell you that that coast was clear again. You've been so sweet about it, you are an ace-girl.

I am still down in the country and propose to stay for the present. I am seeing nobody. I have given up my temp typing job, it was awful. Even the pigs are great. You know you are welcome down here any time. Dad, who is as crazy about you as ever, adds his invitation! Thank God for female friends. All the warmth and sense of the world comes from women, I often think. Let me know your moves!

With much love

Karen

Dear Oliver,

thanks for the cheque back. Yes, do come Thurs. The college guest rooms are full, but you can stay in my rooms. Nice to see you.

Yours

Andrew

Dear Sebastian,

thank you for your letter. Yes, it would be nice to see you. I too value our friendship. I shall hope to have many men friends in my life and in that company you will always, I am sure, have an honoured place. I am rather busy at the moment and cannot manage lunch Wednesday. I think however there is a gap on Friday. Let me know when and where by postcard.

Yours

Karen

Dear Richard,

just a note out of the blue to say why not let's have lunch or a drink one of these days? I suppose we are old friends by now. I seem not to have seen you for ages except at parties. I'll probably ring up some morning.

Love

Ann

My dear Father,

I begin to despair of our understanding each other. I am not ‘evading the issue by hiding in Europe'. The point is that, given the whole situation, my opinions, my character, my talents, it emerges as being not only my interest but my duty to stay here. Perhaps I have not said this before strongly enough. I leave Gracie out here because she is not a necessary determining factor. Even without her I would stay. Please believe this. You say that the search for good must be total giving and not calculation. But total giving, if it is to be right giving, is not a blind smashing of oneself against fate. If I conceived such self-destruction to be my duty I trust that I would not shirk it. But I do not. To choose such immolation would, in my view, be mere masochism, or the nervous stupid fear of being thought a coward or truant. A dutiful disposal of oneself
must
be based upon calculation, since one is an individual soul, and individual souls have different paths. I have reflected deeply and seriously about my own path and about this I can say no more. What you suggest in your postscript I accept as evidence of the degree of your distress. I cannot imagine that you mean it seriously. How much to this your ‘harshness' is to be preferred! I know what you have always thought, and what you know I think, about ‘psychiatrists'. I would regard with utter abhorrence the idea of seeking such aid, or feigning mental weakness in relation to what should most of all manifest mental strength.

As for Gracie, there is little point in arguing. You have not met her, and if you do not cross the Atlantic,
which I beg you to do
, you will not meet her. I love her and she loves me and we are both, I assure you, well aware that marriage is a life-long partnership. This is our decision and we have made it. Please, I beg you most humbly and fervently, come to the wedding. Do not think any more that you can dissuade me. In this situation, if we are not to become strangers, which is unthinkable, one of us must yield, and it will not be me. Begging your forgiveness, and with so much love to my mother, ever your loving son

Ludwig