Boys and Girls Come Out to Play (28 page)

He nodded, trying to damp down a sense of insult.

“Now, I’m sorry, Jimmy, that I sort of got my revenge on Larry through you. When he came back last night he really talked to me for the first time; and you can imagine how I felt. This job in Mell isn’t much by Larry’s standards. He’s used to much bigger ones. Once he had two thousand Hungarians working under him, and he was much younger then, and didn’t know half of what he knows now. But people seem to think that because a man’s older he’s not as good.

“Yesterday, in Tutin, the Minister of Mines, whom Larry knew when the Minister was just a little clerk, didn’t even keep his appointment with Larry. He asked him to telephone next day: just think!” Her eyes sparkled with indignation, making his heart sink still more. “Larry had expected to have to stay overnight in Tutin, and he was actually undressing in his hotel, when he suddenly decided he wasn’t going to let himself be pushed around, and so he came back. He thinks he did the right thing, but naturally he’s nervous; and with things looking so bad, he doesn’t know where he might go next.”

“He might have to go back to America.”

“He’d go almost anywhere rather than that. I think, he’d almost go to Germany.”

“What!”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she answered quickly, frowning. “All I meant was: Larry’s very bitter about the way they’re treating him here, but the thought of going back home is unbearable. He’s too old; I mean, he
thinks
he’s too old.

“I’d never seen him the way he was last night. He’d been irritable and difficult for weeks, but last night he was so
hopeless,
in a way that was new to me. I hope you won’t mind if I say that it made me ashamed of what I’d just done.”

“No, no, I do understand, really.” He was moved to get up and squeeze her arm affectionately.

“I’m going to try and pretend that nothing really did happen between you and me.”

“Of course it didn’t: nothing but an accident.”

“Yes, and you know, what’s more, that’s
true;
it was
really
just an accident, nothing that either of us needs remember. Often, it’s wrong to remember too persistently: you start remembering some trifle and next thing you know it’s built up into something too big to forget. And all the time it’s nothing but the mind at work—a kind of dangerous self-indulgence that hurts not only you but the people you love.”

“You must put it right out of your mind, Harriet.”

“That’s what I’ll try to do. How sensible you are, Jimmy: I see how kind and sensible you are.” She jumped up and kissed him tenderly, and he towered above her with a kindly smile, as old and wise as Moses.

“What I
do
intend to remember,” she said firmly, “is what alcohol does to me. You remember, I mentioned it last night: I scarcely knew who I was, or anything. It’s just plain, silly childishness to drink too much, and can lead to terrible trouble.”

“It was kind of you to tell me all this,” he said. “After all, there was no reason for you to go into all these details. You could have just refused to see me again.”

“Oh, no!” She stood back, looking at him happily, and said: “Jimmy, I shall have such friendly memories of you. Already I feel that we never did meet until this morning.”

This was rather more than he cared to accept, but he nodded profoundly.

“And in any
real
sense, you know, we didn’t. You never saw the
real
me before this morning, and I never saw the
real
you. It makes me very happy, to know that.”

“Me too.”

They stood awhile in silence, smiling at each other, until he said: “Well, I guess I’d better be off.”

At the door, she threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him with much more enthusiasm than she had shown when they were lovers. She murmured: “You’ve been such a great help, dear Jimmy; so sweet.”

“I wish I could see you again, in just an ordinary way.”

“Well, we’ll see. You won’t mind if I decide that?”

“Of course not.”

“Will you be here much longer?”

“Through August.”

“Good luck and thank you, Jimmy dear. Kiss me again, you real friend.”

*

He reached his room shaky in the legs and dazed. He lay down, to sum things up: he knew he had reached a far point, but was it a peak or a dead end? He felt much too calm; calm as the smooth skin around hysteria. Too many things have happened to me in the last day, he thought, holding out his fingers to see if they trembled. It’s too much to find that each new thing makes the thing that happened only a few hours before seem childish. I can’t grow that fast.

He began to feel sorry for himself, not because he had had to give up Harriet but because the renunciation seemed so mature, and he would have preferred at this moment to be an abandoned child.

But soon, he recovered his pride in the renunciation; and the romance that had preceded it looked shoddy and contemptible by comparison, full of cowardice, panic, lying, disorder. The renunciation had been so impressive in its decency; for a long time he recalled their two figures, quietly seated, dressing up unselfishness like a naked doll. He made the sun shine through the window, so that they sat in an aura of holy yellow.
I must really have looked a fine sight, he thought: why not admit the fact if I believe I was so?

He went to the window and looked down on the scene in the square: the strolling Lithuanian and Esthonian barons, the bankers and businessmen from Danzig, a natty French governess leading three American children, waiters sliding between the coloured tables in their white suits, rich White Russians, German Jews in transit to safer areas, a uniformed bell-hop carrying a package toward the entrance of the Poland. What
good
people, he thought, encircling them in his sadness and hoping that no harm would come to them: if I were in orders, leaning down from here, I would certainly give them a mass blessing; they are good, I know, even though they cannot be aware of who is watching them. If I were fatter, as well as ordained, and had a huge black beard, my benevolence would be irresistible.

He believed his course was all set again; he would be able to go about his business quietly: from now on he would develop into a civilized man; one whose past is filled with irreproachable miscarriages.

But at the very moment when he had risen into a tremulous enthusiasm for this new conception of life, his mind seemed to topple over to the other side, and drop into ugliness. He had a burst of deep suspicion.

Why, he thought, did she bother to tell me such a long story? If a woman spends one night with a stranger, next morning she does not owe him her autobiography. When I knocked on her door this morning, why didn’t she just say: “Yesterday was the fourth of July, but today’s the fifth?” It seems to me that women are very good at forgetting something, simply by giving it a name that makes it dissolve like a salted snail. Perhaps she only wanted me as an audience this morning. She only admitted me because renunciation is more elevating if one actually stands on the renounced one.
When she heard me knock, she said: “How wonderful! I can hardly wait to renounce him! If only he’d given me time to put on my best dress!” I am no longer her sweet, enthusiastic, intelligent Jimmy; I am one of the lariats she’s lassoing her husband with, one of the laces of her elevator shoes. I am kind and good—how disgusting, how contemptible!

He became very angry.

Why was I so kind and agreeable, he thought? Renunciation wasn’t what I wanted. Who wants to give up a woman he wants? I was lying all the time. I wanted to have her every day and night, and I do now. Why did I accept everything so meekly? What a pathetic little creature I must be! Do I care about her happiness, or her husband’s? I don’t think I do. I certainly care much more about my own. What I want is to have her naked, all mine, exclusively, whenever I want, and then she can dress and we can go out together to cafés and on bus-rides; I want her to kiss me and love me, and do it so that all the people turn their heads and stare at me. I want her opposite me at one of those round tables, her eyes full of passion, not holiness, and then I want to take her upstairs again; I want to behave like an animal, not like a man of culture; I want to meet her in a room somewhere; I can afford one; I have plenty of money and I’m not ashamed of it. It may be my mother’s money, but by God I’ll spend it. I want to be greedy and go on and on eating her till I’m full. I want to be unselfish when I really want to be, not when her husband falls on his nose. When I saw how holy she looked when she brushed me off, I thought she was wonderful; was I mad? Now, I’d like to see her try that same expression, and I’d give her a good boot; just let her try, just once. Anyone can make their eyes swim, and press hands gently and feel like heavenly twins: ugh! Filth! Stink! Lousy holiness! I should hate her for it, and I do, but it makes me want her more; it’s the phoney part of her that’s exciting, because it
makes me savage, as I want to be. I’m not jealous of that old man of hers, and that proves how contemptuous I am of him. What a woman—to get so much happiness out of giving me up! I could shake her till her teeth rattle. How good if she dies suddenly; not over-painfully.

The way I talk you’d think I’d known her for years. I might almost be her husband.

She
can pretend if she likes that she only met me this morning, but
I’ll
think over and over again of how she really met me last night. I’ll remember that she led the way to the elevator, and I’ll remember every single feeling she gave me. I’ll remember that she was not drunk at all. That’s for spite. Perhaps she’ll sense my feelings by telepathy; I hope they fairly pour into her head and make her turn white.
He’ll
say, “What’s the matter? You’re so pale. Don’t tell me it’s something you ate.” She’ll come running down the corridor asking everyone which is my room. “I am sorry, madame, Mr. Morgan has left no forwarding address. You can always have old Mr. Divver.”

He started up from the bed, horrified. Jesus! Did
I
think all that? Have I become a monster? Once a thing has been thought it can never be taken back: dreams are not renouncable, like friends. Max was right: I don’t think I have ever had a friend or relative whom I didn’t quite casually often wish to see dead, or degraded—which is much more wicked. I have never been denied the smallest thing without at once imagining the denier dead. I have never had a friend whose silly vanity didn’t cause me to feel happier. At heart I would pay any price for my freedom: if millions had to die to give it to me, I should be ashamed, but more happy than sad.

I am the hypocrite who found Brutus despicable. I would like to see Max, my mother and Harriet lie down on their beds and never wake up again. Perhaps not Harriet: I’ll keep her and let her husband die instead.

My God! Now what am I doing? Am I examining my sins or having pleasant dreams? How disgusting to be able to do both at once! Can that be normal?

I shall now be ice-cold. What is she? What am I? She is a woman I met last night, who did me the favour of giving me what I most needed. I am the man who was a frightened boy until she came along. I am not really a man, yet, but I’ve begun to be. I have acted well in giving her up. That’s that; and let’s not even bother to discuss the matter any more.

He went to the window again with a firm step. The good people below had all become silly. That’s natural, he thought; I’ll get a hold on myself, and then the idiots will improve.

It’s not as though I were in love with her.

A trusting, frank, obliging, gentle sort of woman. I wish I’d held her more. I wish I’d managed to hurt her.

What next?

Perhaps I’ll write mother a stinging letter.

He remembered Divver’s order; he got panicky, and began to pack his belongings.

The job was half-done and his muddled thoughts were criss-crossing sulkily but more quietly when he noticed his pills on the bedside table.

He knew that he must get rid of them at once. The last of my past he said to himself, enjoying the phrase and holding up the bottle. He looked coldly at the pills and said to them: and I
would
get rid of you, what’s more, if I knew where to throw you. I am a man, and I shall never be drugged by you again. Consequences? That’s my business; it’s my life.

Yes, it is my life, said an inner voice cautiously.

If I knew where to throw you….

Why, into the toilet, of course.

This simple discovery made him laugh, and resolved all his doubts immediately. At least, I can do this, he thought with pride. He emptied the pills into the toilet bowl, and then went
back for the large reserve supply that his mother had forced on him. Having emptied that in too, he decided to make a change of heart impossible by getting rid of his prescriptions as well. He tore them up—the pidgin-Latin agents of death—and dropped them in. Last of all, he threw in the card he always carried, which had his photograph on it and a blatant description of his sickness, with instructions to Mr. Everyman: “Loosen the necktie; move, if possible, any heavy objects against which he may strike himself during his convulsions….”

He pressed the handle. The pills rushed to the surface, foamed and struggled to live. His photograph spun in a circle. He looked down at the watery battle with haughty detachment. “You who are about to die, I salute you,” he said. The merry-go-round yawned in the centre, and his boyhood went down for ever. Into the sewers of Mell; by conduit to the Bay of Riga; my wet face nodding past the Cinque Ports; to my prescriptions, a salute of twenty-four guns at Plymouth Sound; a circle round the still-vexed Bermoothes; paddling with Fulton up the North River; “Bless my soul, nurse, what’s come through the faucet but young Morgan’s luminal.”

He returned to his packing. He heard the reservoir fill up again behind him, as he had heard it from his dungeon during the night, and for a moment he felt bitter disappointment.

*

“I’m all packed up and ready to go,” he said, when Divver returned in the evening. He had carefully chosen a phrase that suggested present goodness, in case Divver was still brooding over his past badness.