A Severed Head (22 page)

He put the whisky down and, handkerchief still to eye, fished inside his coat. He gave me the silver, and I passed it all through the door to Antonia. I could hear the men departing. I wanted Palmer out of the house.

I said,
‘
I
’
ll go down with you now. We can pick up a taxi at the door.
’

He nodded. I pulled on my trousers and jacket over my pyjamas and we went out. There was no sign of Antonia. In the lift Palmer dabbed his eye and said softly to himself,
‘
Well, well, well…
’
I escorted him to the street, holding his arm, and a cruising taxi appeared almost at once. The rain was still falling relentlessly. When he was in the taxi we both tried to think of something suitable to say and Palmer said
‘
Well
’
again. I said,
‘
I
’
m sorry.
’
He said,
‘
Let me see you soon,
’
and I said,
‘
I don
’
t know.
’
The taxi drove off.

I crawled back to the lift. I felt I wanted to go away somewhere and sleep. I didn
’
t even know whether Antonia was still in the flat. It occurred to me that it was for Honor and not for Antonia that I had hit Palmer. Or was it? I reached the door of the flat which was still wide open. I went through into the sitting-room. Antonia was standing near the window. She seemed calm. Hands behind back, head thrust forward, she surveyed me and her tired face was alive with a sort of provocative quizzical concern. She must have liked my hitting Palmer. Perhaps if I had hit Palmer on day one everything would have been different. Everything was certainly different now. Now I had power, but useless power.

‘
Well, that appears to be that,
’
said Antonia.

‘
What appears to be what?
’
I said. I sat down on the camp bed and poured some whisky into the glass. I was trembling now.

‘
You
’
ve got me back,
’
said Antonia.

‘
Have I?
’
I said.
‘
Good show.
’
I drank the whisky.

‘
Oh, Martin,
’
said Antonia is a shaken voice,
‘
darling, darling Martin!
’
She came and fell on her knees in front of me, clasping my legs, and the great crystalline tears which she used began to pour again. I stroked her hair with one hand in an abstracted way. I wanted to be by myself and to think what I was going to do about Honor. It struck me as a bitter paradox that my flight to Honor had had the result of reconciling her and Palmer, Antonia and me: whatever vision it was that she through the brother and I through the sister had momentarily had it seemed likely now to perish. It was that that would have no sequel. I went on drinking the whisky.

‘
Martin, you are so
familiar
,
’
said Antonia.
‘
It seems silly to say this when I ought to be saying much more splendid things to you, because you
’
ve been wonderful. But it
’
s just this that strikes me! You know, I
was
afraid of Anderson, right from the start. It was never quite right, there was something a little forced. Do you know? I might even never have gone on with it if you had resisted, but no, you
’
ve been marvellous, you
’
ve been perfect. And it
’
s so much better for me, don
’
t you think, to have tried it and come through, and come back — if I
’
d dropped the idea at the start I would have been so tormented, wondering if perhaps there might have been something in it.
’

‘
But aren
’
t you in love with Palmer any more?
’
I asked. I stared at the sleeve of my pyjamas which protruded damply from under my jacket. I had got soaked in my dash to the taxi.

‘
It seems callous, doesn
’
t it,
’
said Antonia.
‘
But somehow yesterday and last night - I can
’
t tell you what it was like. I felt he hated me. He is a demon, you know. And love can die quickly, I think, just as it can be born quickly. I fell in love with Anderson in a flash.
’

‘
Heigh-ho,
’
I said.
‘
All
’
s well that ends well.
’
I noted in a spiritless way Antonia
’
s perfect assumption that I wanted her back. There was something almost magnificent about it. But I could not play out the grand reconciliation scene which she obviously wanted.

‘
Martin,
’
said Antonia, still on the floor,
‘
I can
’
t tell you what joy and relief it is to be able to talk to you again. Though we never really lost touch, did we? Wasn
’
t that quite miraculous, the way we kept in touch?
’

‘
Pretty good,
’
I said.
‘
That was mainly your doing. Anyway, now we needn
’
t worry about the Audubon prints.
’

‘
Darling!
’
She hid her face against my knee, weeping and laughing. The door bell rang.

I was in no mood for further visitors, but I went to the door. A wild idea occurred to me that it might be Honor. It was Rosemary.

‘
Martin dear,
’
said Rosemary in her precise manner, businesslike as soon as the door was six inches open,
‘
I
’
ve come about the curtains. There
’
s a problem about the shape of the pelmets, whether you want wavy ones or straight ones, and I thought I
’
d better ask you and have a look again myself on the spot. Good, I see your stuff has come. We can do a little arranging straightaway.
’

‘
Come in, flower,
’
I said. I led her to the sitting-room.

Antonia had dried her tears and was powdering her nose again. She greeted Rosemary. I said to Rosemary,
‘
I don
’
t think we need bother about pelmets. Antonia and I are going to stay married after all, so everything can now go back to Hereford Square.
’

If Rosemary was disappointed, she concealed it gallantly. She said,
‘
I
’
m so glad, oh I
’
m so glad!
’
Antonia flew to her with a little cry and they began kissing each other. I finished the whisky.

My darling Georgie, you will have been impatient, anxious, perhaps angry, because of my silence. I am sorry. I have been in hell lately. I didn
’
t know that there were so many varieties of torment. I
’
ve been sampling a few new ones. Anyway. You will have heard about me and Antonia. I can
’
t
‘
explain
’
this. It happened not exactly against my will, but without my will. And I have to accept it. I cannot now reject Antonia; you have no conception how broken she is, I would not have believed it. I have to look after her. I am certain of that. I wonder if you understand. All this is strange and unexpected to me beyond words and in many ways bitter too, but it has to be endured. You must forgive me, and forgive this inconclusive, you may even feel evasive, letter. I cannot see you at present. I have to give my energies to putting together again something which I thought to have been completely smashed. It can never be whole. But for the moment at any rate I must give myself completely to it. What I have to offer you, Georgie, I honestly do not know. This is not a way of saying
‘
nothing
’
, but is the truth. I love you, my child, and I believe that you love me, and in a loveless world this is at least something. I can only selfishly ask you to go on loving me in whatever way you can - and I for my part, when my mind is more at peace, will give you what I can, whatever that may turn out to be. I cannot conceive of our friendship coming to an end – and precisely because I believe in our friendship I dare to write such an unsatisfactory letter. But an unsatisfactory letter is, here, the only honest letter. Let me have a little note in return to say you have received this. I hope you are well. I kiss you.

M.

I completed this not only unsatisfactory, but in some ways dishonest, missive under the frank and friendly eye of Miss Seelhaft, who at her desk across the room was making copies of the latest price list. Mytten was away visiting a bibulous titled client; he had been persuaded, not with difficulty I dare say, to stay over the week-end. Some very serious tasting of Lynch-Gibbon wines was apparently taking place. Mytten excelled at those methods of business, especially favoured in the wine trade, where the matter in hand is introduced with leisurely indirectness and a sale takes place almost at an unconscious level, so little reference has there been to the crude details of commerce. Such methods, however, demand time, and Mytten always took his. I was not displeased at his absence.

Miss Seelhaft looked up every now and then to see if I was all right. She and Miss Hernshaw, once again informed of my fortunes before I came to tell them, had with a perfect tact combined discreet congratulations with respectful solicitude. They gave their nod to the convention, but did not pretend not to notice the extent to which I was worn out and wretched. They were full of little kindnesses and generally treated me as an invalid, while at the same time welcoming me back to work in a manner which in less intelligent girls would have showed as patronizing. We all, they strenuously and I with a languid acquiescence, kept up the fiction that the business had scarcely been able to carry on without me.

I sealed up the letter to Georgie. I wondered what she would make of it. There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage. Georgie
’
s time must be approaching the end. But there was nothing I could do, I could not face seeing Georgie just now. If I saw her I could not tell her the truth - and neither could I bear to lie to her face-to-face. It was true that I didn
’
t want to lose her. I wanted her love. I was not so flush with love that I could afford to dispense with it. But I did not yet want to make the effort required to decide that I could not merit, and therefore could not ask for, that love. I wanted, frankly, not to have to think about Georgie at all for the present. There were other matters which rapaciously claimed my soul. Miss Hernshaw, who played mother to us, came in at that point with the tea. As she passed Miss Seelhaft she brushed her arm against her friend
’
s shoulder as if by accident. I envied them.

I went home by tube. It was odd, this feeling of being integrated once again into the ordinary life of London. For over a week now I had been going to the office every day and returning at five-thirty to Hereford Square, just like in the old days; and as I hung from my strap in the swaying train, reading the short story in the
Evening Standard
, I was sometimes tempted to think that I had been the victim of a rich and prolonged but now completed hallucination. Yet I had not dreamed it. The constant pain was enough of a reminder.

Antonia
’
s mood of exaltation was over. It had not lasted long; and now she appeared to be, as I had said to Georgie in the letter, simply broken. I found the spectacle of this broken-ness extremely pathetic and moving, and I had not been insincere in telling Georgie how much Antonia now needed and claimed my attention. The house at Hereford Square still seemed grey and derelict; after having been half slaughtered it had not yet come back to life. We had brought back the pictures and the smaller objects by car, but the rest of the stuff that had gone to Lowndes Square was still there, and Antonia to whom I had left the task of organizing its removal had not yet had the energy to attend to it, so that notable gaps, especially that caused by the absence of the Carlton House writing-table, figured to us as visible scars. How deep were the invisible scars we were only just beginning to learn.

We nursed each other. Antonia, who looked much older and whose face had developed an expression of sulky irritability which was new to it, showed a tendency to crossness which she tried visibly to control. We had sharpish exchanges followed by periods of strenuous solicitude. We were perpetually inquiring about each other
’
s health, fetching hot-water bottles, boiling milk, making tea, and dosing each other with aspirins and phenobarbitone. The house even smelt like a hospital. The fact is we were both exhausted, and yet with nerves sufficiently on edge, both required each other and found rest impossible together. For myself, what mainly sustained me was feeling sorry for Antonia. It was not a pure compassion, but a feeling, I very well knew, compounded with the vindictive. She was aware that she had made me suffer; but she would never know the extent and the nature of the suffering for which, no doubt irrationally, I could not help somehow blaming her. We were both defeated.

It was in some ways fortunate that during this time Antonia was so extremely self-absorbed. She assumed wearily and completely that I was content to accept a return to our former situation. Georgie
’
s name was not mentioned; and I could not make out whether Antonia was now indifferent to my infidelity, or believed that it had ceased. It seemed, strangely, most likely of all that she had simply forgotten about Georgie. I could not quite suppose, mad as we both then were, that she had literally forgotten; but it seemed as if her tired and confused spirit could only deal with a few matters at a time, and evidently Georgie was not one of them.

Palmer
’
s name was not mentioned either. We both knew that it would have to come up. But we were resting. There was no sign of life from Pelham Crescent. Those two had vanished as if they had never been. Antonia suggested of her own accord that she might go down and stay with Alexander at Rembers. I would have been glad enough to have her looked after yet off my hands. But it turned out that Alexander was not at Rembers, but was in London on some mysterious ploy of his own, and in fact we saw very little of him. Rosemary turned up regularly, bringing flowers, fruit, magazines, and other toys for invalids, but neither of us was glad to see her. So, with pity and with exasperation, we lived side by side, each of us sunk in our own thoughts.

In so far as it was possible to do so I thought about Honor the whole time. She filled my consciousness to the brim. She became the atmosphere which I lived and breathed. I endlessly went over our various encounters in my mind and marvelled at how necessarily and how vastly she now, after so little acquaintance, existed for me. But what I chiefly clung to was one thing: she had not told Palmer about the scene in the cellar. At least she had not
then
told him; and with that, as my thoughts ran frantically again through the same circuit, I measured with despair the gap between then and now. Then I had been free and thought that she was. Now I was caught, and somehow more profoundly and irrevocably caught than before, while she - I did not know what to think. At times I attached importance to the idea that Palmer had, through his relation to Antonia, been trying to free himself from a burdensome obsession. At other times I felt equally certain that the strange pair, after Palmer
’
s abortive experience, had become even more united. In any case there was nothing I could do. I did not seriously envisage leaving Antonia. I had her, and definitively so, on my hands. Nor did I even know, though this was somehow the least of my concerns, exactly what picture of me was present in Honor
’
s mind. In spite of evidence to t he contrary, and coming back again to the fact of her silence to Palmer, I was confident that I existed for Honor. Yet, and I concluded it for the hundredth time, I was powerless. And yet, starting out again for the hundred and first time, I could not stop thinking about Honor and with every reason for despair, somewhere, through some minute cranny, there filtered a ray of hope to make in the dark labyrinth of my bewildered thoughts a little dim twilight.

Of course my mind returned continually with fascination to the fact of incest. I even visited the public library and read up everything I could on the subject. The psychological literature was scanty and unsatisfactory, and I soon turned my attention to mythology where, with a curious gratification which was almost consoling, I noted the frequency of brother and sister marriages, particularly among royalty and gods. Who after all was fit for a royal brother except his royal sister? The progeny of such unions, I also noted, was various, often monstrous. When not so engaged my imagination, in an incompetent and frustrated manner, followed the liaison of Palmer and his sister back into their childhood. I reflected too, though not to much purpose, on the insane mother. What lurid illumination I thus engendered served merely to display with a vividness which prostrated me the figure of Honor, aloof, frightening, sacred, and in a way which I now more clearly understood, taboo.

It was still raining. It had been raining for days. I arrived at Hereford Square, shook the water off my overcoat and hung it up, and tramped into the drawing-room. A bright fire was burning and the lamps were all on. The curtains were not yet drawn and I could see outside the light from the window the dripping form of the magnolia tree. Antonia, who had been reading by the fire, jumped up to welcome me. She had a Martini all ready mixed, and a bowl of cocktail biscuits on the little table. She kissed me and asked me what sort of day I had had. I told her and began to sip my drink. I sat down heavily on the sofa. I was now, all the time, unutterably tired as if simply keeping alive was a terrible effort. Absentmindedly I picked up my latest volume of The Golden Bough.

‘
Must you read over your drink?
’
said Antonia sharply.
‘
I
’
ve been alone all day, except for Rosemary coming in this morning, which was hardly a treat.
’

‘
Sorry,
’
I said. I put the book aside.

‘
And why are you reading mythology all the time now? You never used to. You haven
’
t even looked at that book I got you on the war in the Pacific.
’

‘
Sorry, darling,
’
I said.
‘
I
’
ll read it next.
’
I closed my eyes.
‘
And don
’
t go to sleep either,
’
said Antonia.
‘
I want to ask you to do something for me.
’

‘
Anything you like,
’
I said rather sleepily.
‘
What?
’
‘
Will you go and see Anderson for me?
’
That woke me up.
‘
Why?
’
I said.
‘
To achieve what? And why don
’
t you go yourself?
’

‘
I don
’
t want to,
’
said Antonia.
‘
God knows what exactly I feel about Anderson. Sometimes I think I hate him. But I
’
m quite clear that the whole thing is utterly over.
’

‘
Then why should I see him?
’
I said. But my heart burnt with desire.

‘
Simply to finish it off,
’
said Antonia.
‘
And there are practical things. There are a lot of my belongings at Pelham Crescent, which you might bring away, or arrange for a van to take, I suppose, as you wouldn
’
t be able to get them all into the car.
’

I said,
‘
Do you want me to find out whether Palmer still loves you?
’

Antonia looked at me wearily, as if from far away, through infinite grey curtains of gloom and resignation. She said,
‘
He can
’
t love me, or else he wouldn
’
t have given up just because you put your fist in his eye.
’

This seemed true; and I was reminded again of Antonia
’
s innocence. Her connexion with Palmer and Honor, since she did not share in the knowledge that was crucial, seemed flimsy and abstract compared with mine. How connected I was I felt through my bones and my blood as I contemplated the possibility of seeing them again. I had known, of course, that it would come to this, I had known that I would see them again. It was perhaps just this certainty, secretly at work in my imagination, which had shed the little glimmer of hope. But, resting, I had averted my attention.

‘
You
’
re sure you want me to do this, not you?
’
‘
Yes,
’
she said, and sighed heavily.
‘
It
’
s an unfinished business. I shall be relieved when it
’
s done and you and I can settle down to living a normal life again.
’

She sounded so dejected that I got up and leaning over her kissed her on the brow. I remained, leaning a little on her shoulder, my cheek touching her crown of golden hair. It was fading into grey. One day, without having noticed the transition, I would see that it was gold no longer.