The Sea Change (41 page)

There seem to be two sides to this. I don’t see why Papa of all people should be subject to such an accident; he wasn’t old, he was very useful. He must have noticed that Papa was
one of the more useful people, he was so much loved and depended upon. I could understand it a little better if he had had to die
for
something – to save somebody’s life, or for
some greater cause, but it wasn’t like that. He simply gets knocked down on an evening because there wasn’t a moon and I don’t suppose the tail light of his bicycle was working
– I was the only person who ever got it to work – and is left to lie in a ditch and die by himself:
why?
This makes me feel violent: the only person who understood about that and
ever helped me to get past it was Papa, and this is the second side of it. It seems to me that losing him is something which stretches round me in every direction – there is no end to the
loss – starting from quite small things like calling him in the house and hearing him answer, to feeling that wherever I was or whatever happened, he stood in the same relation to me: he
said, ‘We cannot do without help,’ but it was
he
who helped me, and I loved him for that too. Supposing he had not died but I had this aching shock about someone, what would I
do? I would go to him and tell him about it – everything that I have put down here: I would say: ‘The one person in my life – the only person who is really necessary to me has
been killed in a useless, silly accident. There is something wicked here – that somebody so loved and useful should be murdered out of carelessness.’ What would he say to that? He would
ask me what this person had stood for in my life. I would say that apart from his being a most important part of my family and my having always known him and loved him, he was the only person who
gave me any sense of direction, because what he felt and thought and did was founded on what seemed to be an unshakeable integrity which gave them a sense of purpose and proportion. I found this
utterly reliable, and loved it.

Now I have had to think most carefully what Papa would say to this – I have to imagine, out of all the other things that he has said to me, what he would say to this; but I don’t
think he would really say things, he would ask me a hard question: he would say was it reliable of this person to die and leave me so bereft? The answer to that, of course, is that he
couldn’t help it. He would agree with that, wouldn’t he? Yes, he would; I remember now what he said about examples – he said that if one threw one’s arms round a signpost
one might become so devoted to it that one forgot what it was for – he said this was a discouraging thing that happened to signposts. What he’s really meaning is that people
aren’t designed to be the kind of reliable that I’m talking about: or perhaps they were designed to be but none of them manage it. If somebody gives one a sense of direction that one
wants, the direction cannot die – it would still be there even if one lost it. If he gave me that, I don’t want to forget what he said or what he was, but somehow, I must try to go on
by myself .

Did he feel like this when my mother died? Because all these years
he
hasn’t had anybody who meant to him what he has meant to me. I don’t think he has even
tried
to
make another person reliable – he just went on by himself: I know that, so that in some way it hasn’t stopped because he is dead. So: I am supposed to
make use of his death
– that is how he would see it: he once said: ‘It takes
far more
love to be impersonal – not less; will you think about that possibility, my dear Sarah?’ But I never
did: he has actually had to die to make me consider it. I am the last person to try and pick out wickedness when I don’t understand what is good. He always said that was a mug’s
game.

So the real question about Papa, is not what did he die for at all. It is the opposite, and that is what I must try to understand. Otherwise, it is very like having to be on a cliff with no head
for heights.

4

EMMANUEL

H
E
turned his back on the boat and walked slowly across the quay away from them. He had at once the sensation of being
entirely trapped and entirely free. He had just become aware of this when he heard Jimmy shouting to him: ‘Better beware!’ He turned round, but Jimmy didn’t shout anything more.
He was free now to make his decision in peace: he was trapped into the necessity for making a decision. He had never expected an opportunity to look after her – from the moment the telegram
had arrived he had foreseen nothing but her shock, his responses choked by convention, and endless, wearisome arrangements made by Jimmy. He had fallen in with this – what else could he do?
He had got Lillian out of the Post Office before she fainted from the heat, and after that he had simply fallen in with Jimmy’s determination and Lillian’s whim. Now they were gone, and
he was left with her. He had almost reached the Post Office when the certain knowledge that he wanted to marry her and live with her always more than he had ever wanted anything else and more than
he cared about deserting Lillian struck him. It had not been tangible before – he had felt suspended, first by the shock of finding that he loved her, then by his circumstances and the need
for concealment. But now, in some way, action had been taken for him by her father’s death, now if she was ever to be his it was necessary that he make some move, now, whatever she might feel
about him had become relevant. He did not have Jimmy’s cynical confidence in his powers – about them, he simply felt that it was easy to achieve something that one did not very much
want – one was detached enough for the right kind of intellectual consideration – but he did feel that something which was so profoundly and startlingly true for him could not leave her
disaffected . . .

In the Post Office he discovered that she was standing exactly where he had left her over an hour ago. The boy, who was sitting on the floor, said: ‘We have had one false alarm,’ and
she tried to smile at him, but he saw from her eyes that she was not seeing him clearly.

‘If we go and sit outside for a bit, would you call us if the call comes through?’

Julius nodded, and she made no protest when he took her arm and led her outside, until they were almost at the café table, when she said: ‘It will be all right, won’t it? I
must speak to them.’

‘I promise you.’ He arranged his chair so that he could see the Post Office door and saw Julius looking through the window to see where they were. ‘It’s all right:
he’s seen us. All he need do is wave. Have a cold drink.’

She nodded, and then asked: ‘Where are the others?’

‘They’ve gone on the boat,’ he said gently: ‘to see about the plane tickets.’

‘Oh yes.’ She said it as though that had nothing to do with her.

When her drink arrived she said: ‘I do realize that this has disorganized everybody: I’m so sorry.’

‘We were all ready to go back anyway,’ he replied with what he hoped was just the right note of callous cheerfulness.

She had not touched her drink; she stared at it quite calmly, and then said: ‘I’m afraid I can’t drink it: I feel too dizzy.’

He got up, turned her round in her chair by her shoulders and pushed her head down between her knees, catching her just as her body started to go limp.

After a very short time he felt her head pressing up against his hand and released her.

‘All right?’ She had some colour in her face now, and he realized how white she had been.

‘Yes, thank you. I haven’t done that for years – I used to know exactly when to put my own head down.’

He handed her her drink. ‘You sound as though you have had a great deal of practice. I should drink some of that.’

‘Years of it. Nearly every week at Early Service. You need practice to kneel with no food inside you. Could you get some more orange?’

‘You haven’t finished that one.’

‘I should like to take some to Julius; he is a kind boy, and he is exceedingly fond of orange juice.’

‘I’ll take him some: you stay where you are.’

Julius received the drink gravely – he had picked up a number of Greek manners. There were more people in the Post Office, as the mail from the boat had been sorted, and a letter was
handed to him. He asked Julius if there were any more, and Julius asked and there weren’t. As he walked back to her he saw her put her hands on each side of the small table and grip it, and
he knew that she was using the table to make something real for herself and his throat ached with pity, but when he reached her she looked up and said: ‘Was he pleased?’

‘I think he was. There was only one letter – for me.’ He put it on the table. ‘Do you think it would make it any easier for you while you are waiting for this call if you
talked about it?’

But she answered stiffly: ‘I haven’t anything to say.’

A moment later she said: ‘I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It is just that I am trying to get used to the idea: it seems to be all I can do.’

‘Telegrams are winding. It will be better when you have talked to your family.’

She said in a low voice: ‘It will seem more real, anyway.’

He had never felt so powerless: everything he longed to do was either useless or impossible. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her head until she wept and released some tension of her
feeling; he wanted to tell her that there was nothing that he would not do to help her – now and always; he wanted to tell that he knew how she was feeling, that he loved her and would never
allow anything again to hurt her as this was hurting, he would prevent, or at least share it. But he knew that he wasn’t even sharing it: he leaned towards her, impelled to say something, and
as suddenly, she smiled and looked down to her feet.

‘I wondered what this was.’ She had bent down and came up with an extremely small, very dirty kitten in her hands. The moment that she put it on her lap, it rose on to its hind legs,
climbed up her and thrust its bullet head under her chin, emitting an improbably noisy irregular clockwork purr.

‘Oh really! It seems quite frantic for affection. Isn’t it a curious colour? Like a black cat dipped in flour. It’s rather ugly, in fact.’

But she was still smiling at it: it was a filthy little creature, with long legs, a rat-like tail, and its ears still looked as though they had been stuck on to its head, but he felt so grateful
to it for making her smile, that he said: ‘I’ll get it some food.’

They gave it some bread and cheese on the table, which it ate in frenzied tearing gulps. Two other full-grown cats arrived like magic; one of them jumped on to the third empty chair, but the
kitten put one paw over the bread, fluffed out its meagre coat and swore with such appalling violence that the older cat washed a hind leg and retreated. When it had eaten everything, it walked
twice round the table for crumbs, neatly avoiding the letter, looked them both in the face, jumped on to Alberta’s lap, and went to sleep with hiccoughs. She said: ‘It has the most
honest expression, quite unlike Napoleon, who always makes one feel rather uncomfortable on purpose. She’s our cat at home.’

‘This is a little guttersnipe: it’s learned all it knows the hard way. It doesn’t look as though it has learned much about washing.’

She stroked its back and said serenely: ‘No: it is probably covered with fleas. I wonder whether . . .’ but even before him she had seen Julius waving. She said: ‘Please keep
the kitten,’ put it on his knee, and went.

He kept the kitten and waited: it seemed a long time. Eventually, because he had to find something to take his mind off waiting for her, he picked up the letter and opened it.

It was from Mrs Friedmann and it was about the boy, Matthias; the writing was enormous, but difficult to read.

There followed a long and pathetic account of Matthias’ state of mind. He had lost one finger at the second joint, and damaged two more so badly that playing the violin was out of the
question for him. He was shocked, and inconsolable about this – wished to die – he had tried to attack the surgeon and after that seemed to have no interest in anything or anybody. The
sight of Mrs Friedmann or Becky reduced him to floods of tears, and the sound or even the idea of music made him hysterical. He was still in a hospital although they had moved him: they had tried
to have him at home, but it was clear that he needed continuous attention, and as he seemed not to endure Mrs Friedmann it had not proved practicable to keep him there. Then came her astonishing
suggestion.