Bethany (28 page)

No, I don't mean that. I hope I don't mean it.

‘Be careful,' he said. Be careful.

If I put my own enlightenment before Alex's needs, it will not be forgiven me.

And if I prize clarity above compassion I shall lose my clarity.

And if that is the best reason I can find for feeling compassion I have no clarity.

Simon, I need you.

This is what he would call non-productive thought.

Should I run that scene again? No, the pain is discharged from it. There is nothing more there.

And afterwards?

Very little happened. Simon had no more to say, so Pete, Dao and Coral tried to reason with her. She smiled, and answered politely, and denied every word they said.

Dao accused her of possessiveness, of refusing to relinquish her ownership of the house in spite of her statement that houses should belong to the people who lived in them. Alex replied that she did not think of herself as the owner of the house and couldn't understand why they were making such an issue of it.

She was then asked why, in that case, she refused to sell the house to Simon and solve her financial problems. She shook her head, and stared at the carpet.

She did not seem to grasp what was happening at all. She said that, whatever the difficulties, the group should carry on until the end of the five-month trial period – as if she had not made its continuation impossible.

It seemed to go on for hours. At last Alex got up and left the room.

As the door closes it is as if the current has been switched off: we sag.

I am exhausted. I stretch my head backwards and turn it slowly, trying to ease the tension in the neck-muscles.

Simon glances round at us, a tired, wry glance.

‘I am still waiting for a miracle,' he says. ‘I shall wait another hour, and then, if there is no change of heart, I shall gather together what possessions I have and leave this house. You must make your own decisions independently of me. If anyone wishes to come with me, they will be welcome.'

‘The children and I will come with you,' says Dao.

How delightful she is, expressing in her smile a gentle humour at Simon's solemnity, at the very idea of his wife and children making a decision independent of him. I wonder whether Simon really knows Dao, then realise how ridiculous the thought is.

‘I will come with you,' says Pete. Of course. Where Simon goes, he goes.

‘And me,' says Coral. ‘And baby boy.' She bounces the baby on her knee.

They look at me. There is no question where I belong.

‘I think my place is here,' I say.

They understand, but are concerned. I explain that I have no fears for myself.

I say, ‘I may be able to help Alex.'

They are leaving. Simon may have few possessions, but as a group they have a great many. The truck is piled high with clothes and mattresses.

I help them bring things down from the bedrooms. I give them all sorts of things – food, a sleeping bag, odd things they may find useful. Tokens of love, tokens of gratitude.

Alex has disappeared. When they have gone, what on earth, across this impassable gulf, will we find to say to each other?

In fact I was surprised by her restraint. I expected her to tell me to go. That she didn't indicates presumably that she is willing to listen to me. If I can find a way of getting through the wall.

I must have hurt her dreadfully. She is brave, Alex.

There was a moment when I thought Simon had gone too far.

‘Keep away from that child!'

Alex has put out a hand to prevent one of the children from falling. Simon snatches the child away.

‘You're corrupt. Don't you dare to go near a child.'

I feel a surge of protest.

Alex accepts it in silence.

She has not said a word for about an hour, while Simon has moved gradually from exposition to anger. He has called her a deceiver, a manipulator, a schemer. I have not defended her because it is all true.

But she would never hurt children. With children she does not lie, or scheme, or charm. I know. She loves children.

I feel slightly nauseated.

I should like to get out of this room, but I cannot leave. Cannot leave until this dreadful meeting is over.

I will go and talk to her. After all, she came to me.

‘Alex.'

She is sitting at the bureau, writing in an exercise book. Oh dear.

‘I understand it now,' she says.

I lean in the doorway, waiting.

‘It was all a terrible misunderstanding,' she says. ‘A series of misunderstandings, none of which was ever cleared up.'

I wait.

‘Do you know why Simon resigned from the partnership?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘He resigned because he felt there was someone who didn't want the partnership to work. That being so, there was no point in forming it.'

‘He wrote “Communication break” in the diary.'

‘Yes.'

‘Whose communication break was it?'

‘Yours.'

‘It was
his
.'

I close my eyes for a moment. I initiated this conversation: I must see it through.

‘He couldn't cope with the responsibility. Imagine: taking over a twenty-two-thousand-pound house with another four thousand pounds' worth of assets – for him and his friends! He suddenly saw what it looked like, and he couldn't do it. He got cold feet.'

I stare at her. It's wickedly ingenious.

‘He didn't realise that I knew all that, and that it didn't matter, and that I was going to give them the house anyway.'

‘What d'you mean, you were going to give them the house anyway?'

‘That's why I went to see the solicitor a few days later. I wanted to know if I could make the house over to them. The solicitor said I could only make a gift to specified people, but I said that wasn't any good because other people might come to live in the house, and I wanted to give it to whoever was living in it. He said I couldn't.'

Is she lying? No, I think she's telling the truth. In that case Simon was wrong about what happened at the partnership meeting. He imagined a communication break. Well, it's unfortunate but it's not important. The business of the house has never really been important in spite of what was said on the last morning. It obscures the real issue, which is Alex's character.

‘All right,' I say. ‘I accept that. But it's unimportant.'

‘It is
not
unimportant. It was part of the evidence against me, and it was based on a misunderstanding. All these things mounted up until in the end I was made to appear like a monster.'

‘All right. One part of the evidence against you may be discounted. What else?'

‘When Simon resigned the partnership was dissolved, but you all went on thinking it was still in existence. So you expected things of me which I didn't realise were expected of
me. Quite naturally, when I didn't behave as you expected, you thought I was acting against the partnership. But it didn't exist.'

All anyone has ever expected of Alex is truthfulness and love.

‘The others may have thought the partnership was still in force. I certainly didn't. But it makes no difference. What concerned the group was your behaviour in the group.'

‘Do you admit there may have been a misunderstanding?'

‘Yes, it is possible that there was a misunderstanding.'

‘Thank you.' She consults the page of writing in front of her. She has been working very hard.

‘The day my brother came here,' she says.

She never refers to Philip by name.

‘Yes?'

‘Dao thought I'd said something unpleasant about Simon to him.'

‘Yes, but you told her you hadn't, and that cleared it up.'

‘But it didn't. She didn't believe me. Simon didn't believe me. He couldn't have done, or he wouldn't have accused me of telling lies. What other lies could he possibly have been referring to? I haven't told any lies.'

She believes it. I wonder if she knows what a lie is.

‘I think you're mistaken,' I say. ‘If Simon had meant that, he would have said so.'

‘No, he wouldn't. He's never specific. It's part of his cleverness. He lets people condemn themselves.'

‘You should pursue the implications of that remark.'

‘Kay, can you be absolutely sure that that wasn't what he had in mind?'

I hesitate fractionally. Whatever the risk of her misusing the truth, not the slightest deviation from the truth is permitted.

‘No.'

‘Right. Now we come to the most crucial misunderstanding of all. Do you remember the night before I went to London, when Simon and I talked in the parlour?'

‘I don't think I shall ever forget it.'

She darts me a look which I can't interpret.

‘He thought I walked out on him,' she says.

‘What?'

‘We weren't getting anywhere. He suddenly got up and left. I thought he'd gone to bed. I thought it was one of his dramatic departures. So I went to bed. But he hadn't gone to bed, he'd gone outside – for a pee, I suppose. I heard him come up the stairs later.'

She watches intently for my reaction.

She is telling the truth, and I can see how it would have upset him. He would interpret it as the most extreme form of communication break short of violence. But something is missing from the data.

‘Okay. But if you knew that, why did you go to London instead of staying here to sort it out with him? You must have wanted not to continue the conversation.'

She is silent. I pursue it.

‘You must have been talking about something pretty important.'

She doesn't want to answer. She doesn't have to tell me what it was: but she must confront it.

‘
He
talked. I wouldn't answer him.'

‘Why not?'

Alex makes a gesture of hopelessness.

‘All right. I didn't want to tell you. Simon loved me.'

This is a depth-charge compared with which the other evasions are little squibs. My head rocks with it. Doesn't she care what she does to people's minds?

‘Of course he did,' I reply. ‘He said so.'

‘Yes, and he couldn't handle it. He kissed me once, you know.'

‘So what?'

‘Properly. On the mouth.'

If she carries on like this I'm afraid she may begin to confuse
me. I feel anger and pity. I repress the first and keep the second on a short leash.

‘Are you suggesting that his feelings for you were so strong that they threatened his relationship with Dao and the survival of the group?'

‘No,' says Alex. ‘I think he could have handled it if it hadn't been for my own feelings. If I'd just done what he wanted, the way all the rest of you did what he wanted, it would have been all right. He's used to being surrounded by adoring women. But I can't play that game. I've never submitted emotionally to a man in my life.'

‘What are you saying, exactly?'

‘I was in love with Simon. That's why I had to fight him. That's why I had to go away.
That's
what upset him.'

I lean against the door-frame and breathe slowly. There it is, unveiled. The final, enormous, pitiable evasion. And clever. Let me not underestimate its cleverness. If I were just a shade less clear in my mind I should have been thrown by it, by its plausibility, its emotional weight.

‘I tried to tell you,' says Alex. ‘That day we sat and talked under the chestnut tree. But it was no good because I was in such a turmoil I wasn't coherent, and all you could say was that I was evading something. Which I was, I suppose: I didn't really want to tell you.'

‘You are still evading something now.'

She looks at me, startled.

‘I was in love with Simon for a time,' I say.

‘I know you were.'

‘Everybody who meets Simon is in love with him for a time. They don't use it as an excuse for everything unacceptable they do.'

‘You're still in love with him,' says Alex. ‘You've become Simon. You talk like him, you stand like him, you walk like him. He's taken you over.'

‘I expect I do talk like him. I say what I perceive to be true,
and the same truth is likely to be put into the same words. Does it matter who uses the words first?'

‘You see what I mean,' says Alex.

I shrug.

‘All the time I'm talking to you,' says Alex, ‘I sense that you aren't listening.'

‘I am listening more carefully than I have ever listened to you in my life.'

‘But you're listening
for
something.'

This sets me back a little. Yes, I am listening for the lie. How else, in the circumstances, should I listen?

‘Yes,' I admit, ‘I am testing the truth of what you say as you say it.'

‘It's more than that. You're screening it for bad motives. For weeks, everything I've said and done has been screened for negative content.'

‘Nonsense. One simply sees things. You know that. You've experienced that clear perception. One sees.'

‘One sees what one looks for.'

I gaze at her blankly.

‘There's good and bad in everyone,' she says.

‘Oh for heaven's sake, spare me the platitudes.'

‘But it's
true
, Kay. I understand your perception – for God's sake, if I didn't I'd have kicked you out as soon as they left. The bad you see in me is there. But there's bad in everyone. There's bad in you: Simon found it.'

‘Yes, and I acknowledged it.'

‘And I didn't acknowledge mine because I will not be bullied and shouted at.'

‘He didn't shout at you.'

‘He did. Just before they left, he lost his self-control completely, and he raved at me.'

‘You're lying.'

‘I am not lying. For days every time I've opened my mouth you've told me I was lying.'