The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (49 page)

‘So you’re driving Monty to Mockingham this afternoon?’ said David.

‘Yes. Don’t be angry with Monty.’

‘I’m not angry. I’m just sort of disappointed.’

‘Because he hasn’t had a big talk with you?’

‘He doesn’t seem to care. And he’s so sort of spiritless.’

‘Spirit-less. That he could never be.’

‘He just doesn’t seem to function any more.’

‘For you, perhaps he doesn’t. We all have our Montys, and they can be disappointing, but perhaps that’s our fault for wanting the wrong thing. Monty is a good deal fonder of you than you seem to imagine.’

‘I don’t think Monty is fond of anybody. Sorry.’

‘He just feels he can’t help you at present. See it as humility. Some people help themselves by helping others, and this cheers them up because it’s an exercise of power. But Monty mistrusts that sort of power. Maybe because he could have so much of it if he chose.’

‘It doesn’t seem right for Monty to be humble,’ said David. ‘I don’t want him like that.’

‘I know. We don’t like our Montys humble. We want them to be proud. But that may not be good for
them.
You’ll see him again anyway at Mockingham when you come. There’s a lot of Monty ahead.’

Edgar had invited David to Mockingham. Edgar had invited David to come with him to the British School at Athens. David could go on a dig in the Peloponnese if he wanted to. The dig had already turned up a gorgeous torso by Phaidimos and a fine calyx by Douris. None of this helped at all. David could not live the terrible death of his mother, he felt hourly that he could not survive it. Compared with that
fact
even his father’s obscene hasty marriage, even that woman living at Hood House and changing it all and spoiling it all, was just a foul irritation. His mind felt impossible, like an impossible visual object or like a huge tattered thing which someone was trying to drag through a narrow pipe by awful force. Nothing helped. Well, perhaps Edgar helped a little.

‘Don’t cry,’ said Edgar. ‘You can stop yourself. Try the Moselle and tell me what you think of it.’

‘Don’t be silly! All wine tastes the same to me!’

‘No it doesn’t, David. Now drink some and concentrate. I’ll teach you all about wine at Mockingham. I’ve got a marvellous cellar there. You’ll like it at Mockingham. I’m putting you in the turret room.’

‘That’s the nineteenth-century folly?’

‘Yes. Thank God my mother never had the cash to pull it down. The turret is octagonal. My great-grandfather admired Frederick the Second. There are windows all round and you can see the whole valley. It’s jolly cold in winter though. In winter we’ll put you in the west wing.’

‘ "We"?’

‘Monty and I.’

‘The west wing is Regency?’

‘Queen Anne. It’s less romantic than the Elizabethan part, but far more comfortable.’

‘And you’ll help me with Greek like you said?’

‘Of course. When you’re up at Oxford reading Greats you’ll be quite near. You can come every vac, and at week-ends, and bring a reading party of your friends. You must regard it as a home.’

‘That’s just as well,’ said David, ‘as I haven’t any other one.’

‘Don’t say that. They need you.’

‘You keep saying so.’

‘They do.’

‘They don’t. They are self-sufficient. They regard me as part of – her —’

‘Steady.’

‘They have cut her off, cut her out, it’s as if they were killing her a second time, making her not to have been. And I’ve got to go too. They’re just determined to forget the past and be happy. They are happy. If you’d only seen them at the door when some horrible new furniture was being delivered. They were like a couple of children, laughing, happy, petting each other in front of the van man. And they’re burning all her stuff. They didn’t even ask me. They’re like Hitler, just destroying everything—’

‘Steady, steady. They can’t be happy. Your father can’t be. Think, David, think. He must need you.’

‘Why should he? He comes to see me now and then because I’m on his conscience, but he can’t talk to me because we haven’t anything to talk about except
her
and he’s already driven her out of his mind.’

‘Of course he hasn’t. He’s just too upset to talk. You must help him.’

‘He’s not upset. He’s looking after himself.’

‘And Emily. Remember she’s had a bad time. You must forgive your father if he wants to look after her now.’

‘Let him. But then he can keep away from me. I’m not going to license it all for him. I can’t do it.’

‘You can do something. You can be just a little gentle and kind.’

‘It would be sheer hypocrisy.’

‘Be a hypocrite then. To ape goodness is a bit of the battle. It may even be even half of it.’

‘You think he cares what I think. He doesn’t. That’s what’s so – awful.’

‘No, no, you have a lot of power, David. You are the final reconciler. In the end – without you – they will -starve.’

‘Let them starve.’

‘You have inherited your mother’s part of reconciliation. It must be perfected in you.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I hate them.’

‘For your own sake too you mustn’t. You have got to survive. I don’t mean forget. You have got to become a whole human being and live as one. Hating will only hinder that. You must just – let them be – in your mind. They will need your mercy.’

‘I feel I’m in my mother’s place. I feel I am her. I’m all that’s left of her. No one else cares. Well, Uncle Adrian does, I suppose, but he isn’t anybody.’

‘He is, as it happens, and you must be kind to him too. Did you write to him like I told you to?’

‘No. They’re totally wicked and they just want to be allowed to get away with it.’

‘Will
you write to Uncle Adrian?’

‘Yes! They want me to
nod
and let them get on with it.’

‘Then you must nod. One must not judge. One must nod. You must make your mind quiet. Have you tried?
Sauce béarnaise?
’

‘Yes, I tried – of course I couldn’t exactly pray – She taught me to pray when I was a child – Oh, God, I mustn’t remember —’

‘It doesn’t matter what you call it. Keep trying. And stop being afraid of Christ. He’s just the local name of God.’

‘You don’t think it’s insincere?’

‘No. I don’t believe the dogmas, but still Christ is mine and I’m not going to be deprived of him by the church.’

‘Did you ever discuss all this with Monty?’

‘Yes, but – Monty is so ambitious. I daresay he’s right to be for him.’

‘You said he was humble.’

‘Yes, yes, but he’s an absolutist all the same.’

‘And one shouldn’t be?’

‘I don’t know. One mustn’t worry too much. All human solutions are temporary. Pass your glass will you, dear boy? One has to live in one’s own little local world of religion mostly. For nearly everyone religion is something primitive. We hardly ever get beyond the beginning any more than we do in philosophy. If it’s natural to you to cry out "Christ help me!" cry it and then be quiet. You may be helped.’

‘But how do I know what it means, how do I know what’s true?’

‘That sort of truth is local too. I don’t mean any relativism nonsense. Of course there’s science and history and so on. I mean just that one’s ordinary tasks are usually immediate and simple and one’s own truth lives in these tasks. Not to deceive oneself, not to protect one’s pride with false ideas, never to be pretentious or bogus, always to try to be lucid and quiet. There’s a kind of pure speech of the mind which one must try to attain. To attain it is to be in the truth, one’s own truth, which needn’t mean any big apparatus of belief. And when one is
there
one will be truthful and kind and able to see other people and what they need!’

‘And you say you aren’t an absolutist!’

‘No. You see, it’s awfully difficult really. I’m just talking. But you will be kind to your father?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Now what about some treacle pud, it’s awfully good here and you haven’t got a weight problem. Or all those gluey things from Asia Minor? Figs?
Crêpes suzette?
Just cheese? You don’t mind if I have the
crêpes
and then join you on the cheese? Waiter! We need some more wine. I think a little Barsac with the pudding, oh of course you aren’t having any – well, perhaps this Moselle -’

‘I keep seeing my mother. I even see her in the street. It’s like a constant presence, only it’s so ghastly. And I keep wondering what it was like for her at that moment. I don’t want her to become a nightmare to me.’

‘Pray then. Ask for help. Take refuge. That can be done at any time. Whenever it seems like nightmare.’

‘Yes, yes. I’ll have the Camembert.’

‘Wait. Let me inspect it. Nice and ripe. Yes, you should set up a lifelong habit.’

‘Of eating Camembert?’

‘Of quieting your mind. Or at least of watching its strange antics from a serene viewpoint.’

‘Talking of strange antics – in the middle of everything -I keep on having those fantasies – the ones I told you about -I can’t stop them.’

‘About Kiki St Loy and tearing her clothes off?’

‘Yes. Isn’t it awful? It seems so wicked now to be thinking about a girl in that way.’

‘One’s mind is such an old rubbish heap. All sorts of little bits of machinery start up. Don’t bother about them. Watch them a while, then make a change.’

‘They’re so
detailed
-’

‘I daresay they are. But if that’s your sexual fantasy life I shouldn’t think you have much to worry about. Everyone has sexual fantasies.’

‘Do they? Do you still have any sexual fantasies, Edgar? What are they about?’

Edgar laughed considerably. ‘Well – well – well – I say, shall we be devils and have Irish coffee?’

Edgar let the Bentley purr to a halt a little way away from Locketts. He had left David (who was now occupying Adrian’s flat) in town bound for the British Museum. He stopped the car short of the house underneath a large cherry tree which leaned out over the roadway. He pushed his seat back a little and relaxed, reclining his head and looking up at the blue sky through the branches. He saw that the tree was in copious flower and thought to himself how odd, a cherry tree in flower at midsummer. And it’s a wild cherry too, and they usually flower earlier. The woods at Mockingham are white with them in April, even in March in a warm spring. Then he saw that the flowers did not belong to the cherry but were the flowers of a huge white rose which had clambered up into the tree and climbed right up to the top and was spilling out over the branches in pendant showers of small white blossoms. And as he looked up and saw the very blue sky between, beyond, its brightness lending a radiant transparency to the innumerable flowers, a few white petals fluttered slowly down and attached themselves with a deliberate gentle insistence to the Bentley’s windscreen.

Edgar delayed so, for the luxury of a little period of reflection before going to fetch Monty. There was plenty of time. The drive to Mockingham would take less than three hours. They would take it easily. And arrive in time for evening drinks upon the terrace. How beautiful the valley would look in this perfect weather, the littie mixed woodland all feathery and glowing with different greens, the river flashing its signal where here and there its windings became visible, the tithe barn, big as a fortress in the middle distance with white doves crowding on its stone-tiled roof.

As Edgar looked up at the rose-whiteness and at the sky and breathed slowly and deeply, he let the news come to him that in spite of everything he was happy. Was this disgraceful? Perhaps, but it was hopelessly natural. Two women had died and he had loved them both. How different they were and had differently touched his heart What exquisite sweet pain he had felt when Monty married Sophie. He had carried that pain about for so long like a precious casket. Sophie had privileged him only by her endless teasing. The lie about Amsterdam was her final tease. She had never given him a moment’s peace. But Harriet had reminded him of his mother and conveyed the promise of a refuge of total gentleness. Harriet could have given him, without even noticing it, a lot of joy. He had wanted so litde from these women after all – or was it much? – some small secure affection, holding of hands. And now they were both gone. Yet Edgar knew that he was not desperate with bereavement, his case was not that of Monty or of David. Whereas for his mother he had really mourned and always would. At Mockingham earlier in the week he had tasted the old black misery, looking at the chair in the drawing-room where she used to sit with her feet tucked under her, showing yards of silk stocking and a hint of suspenders. How girlish she had remained right to the end.

The shock of Harriet’s death had almost broken through into the terrible abode of his demons. He had for many years now been spared the demons, though he was constantly aware of their continued presence. He could hear them, as it were, moving behind the wall. They belonged to him and would doubtless go with him to the grave. His mind too, like David’s, ran irresistibly to the horror. He watched his mind as one might watch a bad dog, tugged it a little, and waited for quietness to return. He had had other abominations in his life. He might resemble a huge pink baby and spend his time in libraries reading very obscure texts, but he had had his share of soldiering through nightmares, and things had happened to him of which he could not speak even to Monty. Guilt was always the worst of the problem. (The amazing business at Oregon, the catastrophe at Stanford about which thank God hardly anybody knew.) He prayed and some help arrived. The demons kept their distance. And he could now think steadily of Sophie and Harriet without the self-indulgence of any personal despair.

What he was reflecting upon now as he looked up at the sky through the half transparent papery screen of the climbing rose was how a miracle seemed to have come about lately in his life. Suddenly there were two people who needed him. He had two people of his own to love and cherish. Since his mother and his old nanny had died he had never had anybody. He had always been seeking and searching, sometimes tolerated, usually laughed at, never really wanted, always ultimately abandoned. Edgar had lived many years with his mind and needed no analyst to tell him of his peculiarities. It was no accident that he was unmarried and alone, that his love for women was unrequited, and his love for men undeclared. But now all of a sudden he had two people. How miraculous. Monty had never really known how much Edgar had loved him in the old days, he did not even know it now. And as Edgar thought of how things had turned out at last he was hard put to it to restrain his lips from uttering a triumphant little song of thanksgiving.