Last Things (33 page)

‘You’re not going to pretend, are you,’ she burst out, ‘that she’s in love with him?’

‘Does that matter?’

‘Of course it matters. Do you think it’s good to have your first affair with someone who doesn’t give a damn for you?’

‘My impression was, she had some feeling for him. I don’t understand what it is.’

‘She’s five years older.’ Margaret had flushed, her eyes were bright with temper. ‘You all say she’s attractive to men, she could have her pick, unless there’s something wrong with her. Why in God’s name should she throw herself at him? What has he to offer her? He’s too young. I could understand it perhaps if he were her own age, then he might be a good prospect–’

She went on: ‘I tell you, I can’t understand it. Unless – there are just two reasons why she might be doing it. And neither of them is very pleasant.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Well, she might be one of those women who like seducing boys. That would be bad for anyone like him–’

‘It’s possible.’ I stopped to think. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was likely, though. I haven’t heard her talk about his being young. I doubt if she thinks of him like that.

‘Anyway,’ I added, ‘I’d guess that he’ll soon be able to look after himself in that sort of way.’

‘If it’s not that,’ she said, ‘it’s something worse. She’s determined to get him to herself. Away from us. So that she can fix him right inside that wretched movement of theirs. And she’s chosen the one certain way to fix him.’

I had already thought something not unlike that myself: this might be the second stage of the struggle. In that case, she had all the advantages.

‘Are you happy about that?’ Margaret was distressed by now: and, as often happened, her distress turned into anger.

‘No.’

‘Do you want him to waste himself?’

‘You might remember, that I’m not responsible for any of this. Just because I’ve said one word in her favour–’

Margaret broke into a guilty smile, then hardened again.

‘But he may be wasting himself you can’t deny it, can you? If she gets control of him, and makes him sink himself in this nonsense, then he could be a casualty, of course he could. To begin with, if that takes up all his time, his work is going to suffer.’

‘He’s pretty tough, you know. And he likes doing well. I really do doubt if that will happen.’

‘Anyway, it’s a waste of anyone like him. He ought to be thinking of something worthwhile. If he spends his energy on something which anyone of his sense ought to see is useless, and worse than useless, then he can do himself harm. Whatever he wants to do later. It’ll take him a long time to recover. Just because this woman has got hold of him.’

I hadn’t any answer which satisfied either of us. She was exaggerating, I said, she was making Charles out to be weaker than he was; she was leaving out all that he would do, if Muriel didn’t exist. But none of that was comforting. She had made me apprehensive, as I hadn’t been for a long time: in a fashion which I had become released from, the future was throwing its shadows back.

OUR housekeeper, getting it both ways, mourned the departure of the last young presence from the flat and simultaneously showed robust Mediterranean enthusiasm for its cause. When Charles, becoming punctilious towards her as to Margaret, telephoned to say that he would call on us for a meal, he was welcomed by his favourite dishes. This happened regularly twice a week throughout the late summer; Charles came in at six, talked cheerfully through dinner without mentioning Muriel or his way of life, and left at ten. He did take care to dispel one of Margaret’s qualms. Yes, he was working: he was too much conditioned not to, he said, teasing her over the exploits of her academic grandfather and uncles. Their reading parties! He was prepared to bet that he did more work by himself than they did smoking their pipes, taking marathon walks, cultivating personal relations and revering G E Moore.

All was serene, on the plane of conversation. It was harder for her than for me to accept that most of his existence she couldn’t know.

Then, soon after he had returned to Cambridge for the Michaelmas term, she had news of her other son. It was in the middle of an October afternoon when, reading in the study, I heard the doorbell ring. Moments afterwards it rang again, long and irritably. No one was responding. I got up and went to open the door myself.

There, on the landing, stood Father Ailwyn, bulky, white face shimmering over black cassock. He didn’t smile: he moved his weight from one foot to the other.

I asked him to come in. His awkwardness infected me. I wasn’t fond of uninvited visitors: and also he was one of those of whom I thought kindly when he wasn’t there – and uneasily when he was. And yet, I had a regard for him after that talk – or interrogation – in the hospital.

As I led him into the drawing-room, neither of us spoke. When he was sitting down, light falling on the pale plump face, which might have looked lard-like if his growth of beard, clearly visible after the morning shave, hadn’t been so dark and strong, he was still mute. Then we managed to exchange words, but his tongue seemed as thick as it usually did, and mine more so.

My first attempt was an enquiry about his parish.

‘It doesn’t alter much,’ he replied.

Stop.

I tried to repeat something I had read about an ecumenical conference.

‘No, I don’t know anything about that,’ he said.

After that he felt that an effort was up to him. Suddenly he asked, with exaggerated intensity, about my eye. I said, all had gone well.

‘Is it really all right?’

‘It’s got some useful sight. That’s the best that they could promise me.’

I closed the good eye. ‘I can see that you’re sitting there. I might just be able to recognise you, but I’m not sure.’

‘Very good.
Very
good.’ His enthusiasm was inordinate, but that was where it ended. Silence again.

He stared at me, and broke out: ‘Actually, I was hoping to see your wife.’

That seemed not specially urbane, even by his standards. Still, it was a diversion, and I went to find her. She was in the bedroom, sitting at her dressing table in front of the mirror, having not long come back from her hairdresser. I told her that Godfrey Ailwyn was asking for her, and that she had better come and take the weight off me.

But, after they had shaken hands, the weight was not removed. His eloquence was not perceptibly increased. There were now two people for him to gape at awkwardly, instead of one. Margaret, who had had some practice at making conversation, found the questions falling dead.

Ignoring her, Father Ailwyn looked straight and soberly at me.

‘I think’, he said, ‘I ought to speak to Margaret by herself’

She gave me a baffled glance as I went out. I was more than baffled, as I sat alone in the study. I had no premonition at all about what he had come to tell her.

It was not long, not more than a quarter of an hour, before Margaret opened the study door.

‘You’d better come back now,’ she said. She was looking flushed and strained, her eyes so wide open that the lids seemed retracted.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s about Maurice.’

‘Is he ill?’ My thoughts had flashed – not because I had ever imagined it of him, but because of a groove of experience – to suicide.

‘Nothing like that.’

I was standing by her, and had put my arm round her. She went on: ‘No. He’s going to get married.’

‘Oh well–’ I was beginning to laugh it off, when she broke in: ‘To someone who is handicapped.’

‘What does that mean?’

She shook her head, and moved like someone impelled to hear a verdict, towards the drawing-room.

Rising as she entered, Godfrey Ailwyn was clumsy as ever on his feet, but more comfortable, and more authoritative, now that he had done his duty. From their first remark I gathered that he had delivered a letter from Maurice; I wasn’t given this to read until later, but it was full of love for Margaret and explained that, though he knew this would cause difficulties and disappointments for her, he proposed to marry someone whom he ‘might be some good to’. The wedding and all the arrangements would have to be ‘very simple and private’ because she wasn’t ‘used to these things and mustn’t be frightened or given too much to cope with’. Godfrey Ailwyn knew all the circumstances and would be able to discuss what should be done.

With Godfrey resettled in his chair, I picked up most of this, and another piece of information, which was that the girl was the sister of a patient in the hospital where Maurice worked.

Margaret was looking at me. There was a question which had to be asked.

‘Is she mentally affected?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘You’re not keeping anything from us?’

‘Lewis,’ he replied, ‘you needn’t have said that.’

He was both stern and wounded, and I apologised.

‘Well then, what is wrong with her?’

I didn’t know how much Margaret had discovered. I had better make certain.

‘She has a limp. It looks like the kind of limp that polio leaves them with, but I believe she’s always had it.’

‘Is it very bad?’

‘One is aware of it. Perhaps it’s more distressing to others than to herself. I think, taken alone, no, it is not very bad.’

‘Taken alone? You mean there’s something else?’

‘She is also partially deaf,’ said Godfrey. ‘I think that is congenital too, and she has never had normal hearing. Of course, that made her backward as a child. But mentally she has caught up. I mustn’t give you the impression that she is brilliant. There is nothing wrong with her there, though. What is more serious is that being deaf kept her out of things. She is very uncertain of herself, I doubt if she has ever made friends. And that is why Maurice has changed everything for her.’

‘Is that what he means’, said Margaret, voice tight, ‘when he says she’s handicapped?’

‘That is what he means.’

‘And that is all he means?’ I pressed him.

‘That is all he means.’

‘You’re certain? You do know her?’

‘I know her. She is staying at the Vicarage now.’

‘Then I can see her?’ Margaret broke out.

‘I’m afraid not, Margaret,’ said Godfrey in a gentle tone, but with cumbrous strength.

‘Why not?’

‘Maurice thinks we must make everything easy for her. And he knows more about the unlucky, and how to help them, than any of the rest of us will ever know.’

‘But I must see her. This is his whole future.’

‘Margaret, your son is trying to lead a good life. I don’t believe you could alter that, but I beg you to listen to me, you mustn’t let him see that it brings you pain.’

Godfrey was speaking to her as though I was not present. After all, Maurice was not my son. Maybe that was why Godfrey, giving the impression of bumbling incivility, first insisted on telling the news to her alone. He was her son, not mine. And Godfrey – one had to remember – did not approve of divorce.

‘I wish’, said Margaret, her eyes bright with tears held back, ‘that he was leading a life like everyone else.’

‘If I were you,’ Godfrey replied, ‘I should wish the same. But I don’t think it would be right, do you?’

‘I can’t be sure. For his sake, I can’t be sure.’

My own feeling might have been different from hers, certainly was different from Godfrey’s. But this wasn’t a time to speculate. Godfrey was continuing to tell us more about her. She was, he thought, a ‘nice person’ (which, at that moment, seemed one of the flatter descriptions). She was twenty-three, the same age as Maurice. It was not until that point that I learned her name. That may have been true of Margaret also, for Maurice had not mentioned it in his letter. It was, Godfrey said in passing, Diana Dobson. He believed that in her family she was called Di.

‘You must remember,’ Godfrey told Margaret, ‘she comes from the very poor. Her mother is a cleaner in a factory. The father left them long ago. They are as poor and simple as they come. I’m afraid that’s another difficulty for you–’

Margaret flared up.

‘Do you think
that
would make the slightest difference to me?’

She was angry, seizing a chance to be angry. Godfrey gazed at her with a sad, doughy smile. He said: ‘Without meaning to let it, and feeling bad in the sight of God, I have to confess that it always makes a difference to me.’

He must have been speaking of his visiting round in the parish. Maurice once told me that, when he went as companion, he usually enjoyed it, but Godfrey almost never.

Margaret’s expression changed. All of a sudden she was open and naive, as few people saw her. She said, as though it was the natural reply: ‘I am sorry, Godfrey. I know you’re a good man.’

‘No.’ Heavily he shook his head. ‘I wish I could be. It’s your son who is a good man.’

He added: ‘I’d often hoped that he’d become a priest. It would be the right place for him. But now there’s this marriage instead–’

I was thinking, Godfrey strongly disapproved of divorce: the only thing he disapproved of more strongly was marriage. At least for himself and his friends. No, that was unfair. But it was the kind of unfairness – or slyness or malice if you like – that showed that I was becoming fonder of him.

He and Margaret got down to business. Maurice had given instructions which weren’t to be departed from. There were to be no press announcements of the engagement: and none of the wedding, except for a single notice in the Manchester evening paper, for the sake of Diana’s relatives. No announcements. He would write himself to his friends. (Why all this?) However his friends might behave in other situations, here he could have trusted them: Charles and all the rest would have set out to welcome her. That was part of their creed. They would be far kinder than, in the past, my circle would have been. Yet Maurice was being excessively cautious, like Charles but unlike himself, or anything that he had written to his mother or told to Godfrey: acting – it was hard to believe – as though he were ashamed of it.

The wedding was to be in Godfrey’s church, in a fortnight’s time. Here – and this was entirely understandable, for as Godfrey said, it was in order not to harass the girl – there was to be no one invited, except a cousin of Diana’s to give her away.