The Gale of the World (5 page)
Read The Gale of the World Online
Authors: Henry Williamson
“How’s Melissa? I haven’t heard for ages.”
“Nor have I.”
After awhile he said, “Where are you sleeping tonight?”
“With you, if you like.”
“I’m afraid ladies aren’t allowed in the Barbarian Club at night.”
“Oo-er! Fancy that, now! What orgies you Brother Barbarians indulge in! Well, I’ve got a room in Old Compton Street. If you’re tired, you needn’t see me home.”
“How long have you known Piers?”
“Since last night.”
“You’re not in the old clothes trade by any chance, are you?”
“Oh yes, I am! I stripped him, and pinched everything I could, before he woke up! I only helped him to my room to get his pants, vest, and socks! Didn’t you know I was in the Rag Trade? Oh yes! I’m known as the Female Totter of Tottenham! I buy rags, bottles, and old bones. I’ll buy yours if you like! Oo, I’d like to have you stuffed!”
“So you’ve only known Piers twenty four hours, then? Fast work, Wissilcraft.”
“I’ve spent more time with him than you ever let me spend with you, you prickly old Merlin.”
“Well, this is my club.”
“Aren’t you grand!”
“No, we’re squatters.” He kissed her cheek. “The prickly old Merlin will walk with you to Old Compton Street, if you like.”
“No, you’re tired, my Prospero,” she said, suddenly gentle. “I can take care of myself. I learned judo in the army. When shall we meet again?”
“I’m engaged tomorrow, and the next day am due at the Divorce Court.”
“Oh Phillip, I’m sorry. Really I am. I heard about Lucy from Melissa. She said she was very sweet.”
“I was a brute.”
“Yes, you can be the wrong sort of brute, I know. That’s what ‘Buster’ says of himself. Why do you men of intelligence and sensibility always condemn yourselves? Anyway, he’s divorcing his wife in two days’ time, so you may meet. Shall I come and hold both your hands? How is Boy Billy? I took quite a fancy to him, when I came to your farm. He must be almost grown up now. He was so sweet!” She saw his staring eyes in the light of one of the tall gas-lanterns. “O, Phillip! What happened?”
“He was killed in the last week of the war.”
“Oh no!” Her eyes filled with tears, her sympathy was
swimming
towards him, her arms went round his chest, she laid her cheek against his neck, holding him. “O, not that sweet, sweet, boy!”
*
Laura was lying in her small iron-framed bed in her attic room. Phillip lay beside her. Both were in their day clothes, less their shoes. Each was trying to find comfort in the presence of the other.
Laura was thinking that Caliban was one’s subliminal self, that Ariel was the spirit’s aspiration; and all human beings were lost in the dark chasm of hopeless hope between the two elements of nature. Phillip was thinking, I cannot lose myself in her, with her. What is it that is holding me back? Perhaps it is all romantic love, no more real in nature than the transfer of a crude picture on the back of a child’s hand. I am afraid, not of her, but of her desire for me, which I cannot fulfil.
The ghost of the moon, distained by London air, was going down behind black chimney pots.
“What are you thinking, Phillip?”
“I was wondering if you were comfortable.”
“Oh, were you, now. Well, since you’ve mentioned it, I wonder if you could move your arm a little. It’s pressing on my ribs. Oh no, don’t go away,” she sighed. “Come closer. Be
with
me, my sweet. Just be yourself.”
“I feel you want me to make love to you.”
She sighed. “Don’t you have any other feeling?”
“I’m like men coming out of battle. They can’t change over, they feel lost to themselves, they drop to the ground, crying.”
“Must you talk of the war?
Your
war?” She got off the bed and filling a glass with water, swallowed two tablets almost violently, then threw the rest of the water away. He heard her unlocking the chest in the corner by the window, saw her taking out a large book with millboard covers. Then she sat down, and using a knee for desk, began to write. He thought this was himself all over again. But age had sublimated the strain of selfishness in him. There was no jag to make her pregnant. No opposing masochism in her.
Footfalls were coming up the stairs, between pauses. A man’s boots. Coming to see Laura? Perhaps she’s a tart, I’ll leave. Double knock on door. Laura capped her pen, shut the book, put it under an arm and in stocking’d feet went to the door.
“I hope you don’t mind my coming,” said the voice of Piers. “Couldn’t stand the snoring in O’Callogan’s annexe. May have been my own.” He saw Phillip. “Ah, already at roost, I see. What’s the book, Laura?”
“My one and only true companion, the love of my life.”
Phillip got off the bed and reached for his shoes. “I must be going. I’ve got to deliver an article tomorrow morning.”
“Oh no, you’re too tired! I can sleep on the floor,” said Laura.
“How about going back to my flat? Plenty of room there, if
you don’t mind American food packs and medals lying about,” said Piers.
“I really must go,” said Phillip.
“In that case, I’ll take the bed,” replied Piers.
When Phillip was gone Piers pulled Laura to him and then began an imitation of a man supposedly in love, so that she turned away from his face and then wished she hadn’t because he began to cry. His mental rupture changed with her compassion, and thereafter she submitted to a variant of mental lust; and then, caught up by frantic despair, felt erotic and tried to enliven him. When he stopped her to ask if she had any brandy, she felt
revulsion
.
“I haven’t any brandy.”
“Then whip me!”
“No, not that,” she said, and turning him on his side, lay against his back, saying, “Try and sleep. You’re exhausted.”
Thus relieved of the fear of impotence he lifted her hand and kissed it. She felt a stir of desire at the tenderness but lay still, her thoughts on Phillip. When Piers began to snore she moved slowly off the bed, and wrapping her gown around her, lit a candle and began to write a letter.
*
Piers was still snoring when she returned from posting the letter, two hours later. She did not mind the snoring; Phillip would get the letter at his Club by the second post that morning, it had caught the 4.30 a.m. collection, and if he was truly the one she had been waiting for, he would come to her.
Thus, gentle within, Laura fell asleep.
Phillip looked in the card-room on the way to his bedroom, and found the professor still playing poker with his cronies. Trays of self-cremating cigarette stubs, piles of silver money, intent faces, cards. No-one spoke to him. He went on up to bed. Should he take back the letter from the porter’s lodge? Get it tomorrow; too tired. Bed in all his clothes; eyes shut tight against stare of light-bulb.
In the morning three letters came up with the tea-tray.
“My goodness,” said the night porter. “You’re not undressed. You looked a proper tired man when you came in last night. Did you find your friend? You did. Good for you.”
My Dear Brother Barbarian Maddison,
Thank you for your letter. It is true, I suppose, that there are considerable Russian forces mobilised in Europe, east of central Berlin. May I, however, suggest one point that you appear to have missed. The Western powers have the atom bomb and Stalin hasn’t.
At the same time, I have little sympathy for those who misled our late enemies. When British parachutists, the maternal relatives of patriotic young Frenchmen, and others, have been tortured and shot; when prisoners-of-war, notably several R.A.F. pilots, were likewise shot
after
recapture, having escaped from a certain
Stalag
—then I hold, with all good soldiers, including many in the Wehrmacht, that these are acts of murder, and that the perpetrators should be brought to justice.
A Committee member has asked me to confirm certain statements alleged to have been made by you last night at the dinner table. I told him that you did not say what is alleged, in my hearing: I told him that one-sidedness is a vice of great virtue; and that the war has been fought and won for free expression of opinion.
Ever yours,
Bruno da S. Hendrade
Phillip opened very carefully the next envelope. Every aspect of it was suddenly precious.
Old Compton Street.
My Prospero!
Physicians can often save others when they can’t look after
themselves
, so this. You are in the low state of a shrinking icicle and all cold thoughts are bogus in that they are not of the stream of
spring-water
but stagnant, enslaved, abysmal. You—and I—we all—Europeans—Asiatics—soon-to-be Africans—Americans—Russians—have had a hell of a time and feel all to hell and death or revenge the only forked ways forward.
I am a dark soul but I go to the light, you a bright soul sometimes, filling me with terror and darkness, being not so well just now, but nothing considering what you’ve had to bear. Mine was a mere high temperature and pain for a few days, my head a battered ram, and leaching away tears at the slightest bit of poetry or some sad tale of the death of loyal soldiers and sailors since there are almost no more kings, as thou knowest, O my Prospero, Shakespeare’s loveliest creation.
Will you come and eat something with me in my shepherd’s hut, you said. Yes please. Irish blue eyes and the youngest face I know. Fifty you said, sixteen I thought. Then God, what am I doing, looking into Prospero’s fathoms-deep sea? I willed you to look at me in the Medicean, for I recognised you from the Wooltod Inn meeting all those long years ago, when I said,
That
is the man. Since then I’ve given to others but never given myself. Please be kind to me this time. You were so hard and away when I saw you on your farm, but no longer. Gentleness, mutual gentleness. Relief. But what sort of a girl am I now. Can I be Ariel again, I who am also Kundry? And you see with paradise clearness. That’s a phrase from your very first letter to me, written in 1939, urging me to write.
Learn
to
see
all
things
with
paradise-clearness,
you said. Are you still in love with Melissa? Am I being non-paradisaical, impertinent? I feel no reserve whatsoever with you. But you are so young, and I am so OLD. Tell me, I beg of you, where do you get the dye for your hair? Such soft hair, so beautifully white. I must dye mine, too. Some said in Ypern, my village, I was a black witch. Am I? To be burned at some stake? I have always, as Francis Thompson wrote in his
Shelley
essay, burned at the stake of my own heart. But now the fire warms, no longer scorches. I shall dye white my black witch’s hair, it shall turn white overnight through courage, which is, you told me, love. Comradeship equates with the social instinct, the centre is personal love, I’ll come any time you want me and serve you in your shepherd’s hut on the moor. And we’ll have a routine, never meet until noon every day. At night I’ll creep up to you from the foot of your bed and slither away at dawn while you are still sleeping. And write my prose, and you yours, so we won’t fight through frustration and try and Calibanise each other. Have you a bit of wild heather near, where I can lie and hear the lizards and mice creeping about? I’ll go barefoot
and cook for you, or you for me sometimes to give balance. Only I can’t do arithmetic, you must do your own accounts and taxes and all that. I don’t expect you to love me now, so don’t try, you’ve been so long in the wilderness. You are almost all saint. But you mustn’t let the tears drip so much. I do, I know, but you mustn’t. I’ll look after you, and guard you, but please never shout at me or I’ll die.
Piers said you had been an awfully good friend to him and I can see how you are about half of one another to each other, but not more. He is not a steady boy just now, but will recover.
Darling, it may be a difficult time for us both, we are as it were both reprieved. O Phillip, my Prospero, you are such a fine person. Lucky me. Yours for ever and ever, Laura.
River Cottage,
Drakenford,
Dorset.
Dear Phillip,
I am writing to tell you that our Father is very ill and has had an operation which confines him to a nursing home near here. Will you please come down as soon as you can and help me prepare for the worst. I read in the paper that you have given up your farm, so I am sending this to your club in the hope of reaching you as soon as possible.
I still have my job in the City, but shall retire in three years,
meanwhile
something must be done about looking after Father, who is
asking
all the time to be allowed to go home. The doctor says he is old and his mind is wandering. I don’t accept this, for when we are alone he is normal, though as you know a very neurotic man. As you are the head of the family now, at least actively the head, I think you should come at once and discuss the matter with me at your very earliest convenience. I know you don’t like me, but this is a case of duty, I hope and trust you will realise.
Your sister (whether you like it or not)
Elizabeth.
P.S. Doris can’t come, she is still teaching, or rather a headmistress in Cross Aulton, she chose to go there because our dear Mother was, as you know, born there. Please be a sport and help.
He telephoned Laura, he would be away for the night, and why. If she saw Piers would she tell him. A telegram to his sister. Then away in the Silver Eagle, which had been standing under a plane tree opposite the club, to Hammersmith and the Great West Road to Staines, making for the New Forest.
He had been going a couple of hours when, at a village before
Ringwood a butcher boy on a bicycle swerved into the front of the car, touched a wing, and fell clear; but the front wheel of the bike was crushed. One rusty spoke had pierced the cracked wall of the near front tyre. Air was hissing out. New tyres were still unobtainable, except by permit; the spare wheel, fitted into the offside wing, had long since been stolen. He rolled the wheel by hand to the nearest garage, three miles away, and when it was mended, back again. This delayed him four hours. It was twilight when he reached Drakenford, to hear from a neighbour that Elizabeth had gone to the nursing home to await his arrival there. Did the neighbour know the name of the home? The woman shook her head. It was ten o’clock when Elizabeth appeared, on the last ’bus. She was querulous from lack of food.
“I’ve been twice to meet the London train! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming anyway? No, I didn’t get any telegram!”
There was a notice in the letter-box that a telegram could not be delivered, so it awaited collection in the village post office; which was then shut.
“I hope you’ve brought your own food! We’re not like farmers, you know, we’re still rationed!”
“Perhaps we can go into the town, and get supper?”
“What, at this time of night? The place will be all closed up!”
“I’ll put up at the Railway Inn.”
“Yes, and leave me all alone in an empty cottage!”
“Shall I try to get some bread and cheese at the pub?”
“It’s closed. Why didn’t you come earlier?”
“I’m afraid a puncture delayed me.” They went into the
cottage
. It had electric light.
She made some tea. “I’m afraid there’s no sugar. Father’s ration card is at the nursing home.”
“I never have sugar in tea, thanks.”
They talked about the situation; and he proposed that he pay her £150 a year for life, the amount of her pension-to-be, if she left the office to look after their father.
“But he’ll need two trained nurses, and none are available! There aren’t enough to go round. And they’ll want someone to cook and clean for them. I’ve been into all that. I can’t do it all by myself, how can I? He’ll need constant attention!”
“What is the matter with him?”
“Didn’t you know? His prostrate gland has been removed.”
“Was it cancer?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. But he’s old, he’s over eighty, and senile. He won’t be able to contain his water. I couldn’t possibly look after him!”
“But he has some capital, why can’t he live on that? And surely a good parish nurse can come in once a day?”
“He’s afraid that if that’s all the help he has, they’ll soon have him in an old people’s home, which means the Infirmary. He dreads that. No, he expects me to look after him, and it’s too much for me. And as I said, there’s a shortage of trained nurses around here. The district is full of retired business people, so all doctors, dentists and nurses find themselves overworked. And you know what a stickler he is for having things done properly. Matron says he’s always complaining, so they take little notice of him, having other things to do. Then there’s that girl he had in his house, Myra, he calls her, she comes and wants to see him, but they won’t let her in. Quite right, too, she’s only after what she can get. Silly old man, he thinks she’s in love with him, he wants to marry her, can you believe it! Of course it’s old age, he’s gaga! Isn’t that what they call it?” she said, suddenly laughing.
“I think I’ll go to bed, Elizabeth, if you don’t mind. Have you done with the newspaper?”
“I never read them, they’re left here for Father. Anyway, you can’t read in bed. Electricity is rationed. It’s the same everywhere today. Well, how are you? You never write, so I’ve not the slightest idea of how you are or what you’re doing. But you never did care about your family, did you? Father thinks you’re ashamed of us. Anyway, I’ll show you to your room.”
If only he had bought a candle. Or the dark lantern Father had given him.
*
To make a fresh start, Phillip had made over to a trust all
proceeds
of the farm sale—nearly twelve thousand pounds—together with the copyrights of his books. The royalties from the books were small, under one hundred pounds a year. His publisher had told him that his public had gone, owing to his views on the war and also because he had ‘burned up’ his children upon the farm, that is, had made them work so hard that the eldest boy had run away. Then he had taken the second boy, aged sixteen, away from school to replace his brother. These things, the publisher declared, were generally known, and had lost him his reading public. Therefore, he was sorry to say, he had decided not to
accept Phillip’s autobiography, with regret for what he could only describe as the misuse of a splendid talent.
Phillip had four hundred pounds, his motorcar and his
typewriter
. He would start again. All income from the trust, paid to Lucy, was not enough to pay boarding school fees for Peter, Roz, David and Jonny. Another six hundred a year was required. He had hopes from
The
New
Horizon.
Now, lying in bed, he wondered if he could look after his father as well as write and edit the
magazine
. It would mean keeping regular hours, and a strict schedule. His thoughts returned to Laura. Perhaps the three of them, in his father’s cottage? No, it wouldn’t work. Also, he mustn’t get
involved
with her. Lost girl with lost man would mean—disaster. Two stars, each needing a satellite to reflect its light, leaving lonely orbits to conjoin. Explosion. Darkness. No, he mustn’t involve Laura. That lost girl blazing with her own chaos, must not
conjoin
in orbit with a lost old man. He must start his novel at once. He thought of ‘Buster’, living near him on Exmoor. He would have a friend. Now to think about the first novel of his series.
General Mihailovitch’s last words, before being shot in front of one of his daughters—a Communist; the father a Fascist, grey-bearded, manacle’d.
I
and
all
my
works
were
caught
in
the
gale
of
the
world.
The hail of bullets cutting bone and flesh. O fortunatus tu, mon general! If only I had died of my wounds on the Somme. Morbid thoughts no good. Breathe in slowly; as slowly respire; twenty times.
‘Be still, and know that I am God.’
*
A few miles away, in Bournemouth, Richard was lying in bed, groaning to himself as he thought that he was going to die, that his daughter intended that he should die, now that he had signed the new will in her favour. Why didn’t she come? Where was the nurse? He had rung the bell once, and again after waiting five minutes exactly, by his watch. He had said to himself, five minutes, in order to make himself ring again. He was afraid of the nurse. She had complained that he was fussy, just because he had asked for his roll of lavatory paper to be returned. He wouldn’t have to ring for her if only she would let him get out of the bed to sit on the commode. It was spite, that was it, pure spite! He was quite capable of attending to his own motions, and of removing the apparatus for urination. O, why hadn’t Elizabeth engaged the two nurses, it would only be for a month at most, and would cost
well under a hundred pounds. Life afterwards would be fairly comfortable, only he would have to regulate his intake, as the doctors called it, of liquids.
