The Black Prince (Penguin Classics) (39 page)

I went back into the sitting – room and he followed me, already staring at me with surprise. I sat down and started rubbing my eyes and my brow, breathing heavily.

‘What’s the matter, Brad?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I say, there’s some whisky. I didn’t know you had any. You must have hidden it jolly well. May I have some?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you like some?’

‘Yes.’

Francis was putting a glass into my hand. ‘Are you ill?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the matter?’

I drank some whisky and choked a bit. I felt extremely sick and also unable to distinguish physical from mental pain.

‘Brad, we waited all evening for you.’

‘Why? Where?’

‘You said you’d come to see Priscilla.’

‘Oh. Priscilla. Yes.’ I had totally and absolutely forgotten Priscilla’s existence.

‘We rang up here.’

‘I was out to dinner.’

‘Had you just forgotten?’

‘Yes.’

‘Arnold was there till after eleven. He wanted to see you about something. He was in. a bit of a state.’

‘How is Priscilla?’

‘Much the same. Chris wants to know if you’d mind if she had electric shock treatment.’

‘Yes. Fine.’

‘You mean you don’t mind? You know it destroys cells in the brain?’

‘Then she’d better not have it.’

‘On the other hand – ’

‘I ought. to see Priscilla,’ I said, I think, aloud. But I knew that I just
couldn’t.
I had not got a grain of spirit to offer to any other person. I could not expose myself in my present condition to that poor rapacious craving consciousness.

‘Priscilla said she’d do anything
you
wanted.’

Electric shocks. They batter the brain cage. Like hitting the wireless, they say, to make it go. I must pull myself together. Priscilla.

‘We must go – into it – ’ I said.

‘Brad, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. Destruction of cells in the brain.’

‘Are you ill?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m in love.’

‘Oh,’ said Francis. ‘Who with?’

‘Julian Baffin.’

I had not intended to tell him. It was something to do with Priscilla that I did. The pity of it. And then a sense of being battered beyond caring.

Francis took it coolly. I suppose that was the way to take it. ‘Oh. Is it very bad, I mean your sickness?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you told her?’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘I’m fifty – eight. She’s twenty.’

‘I don’t see that that decides anything much,’ said Francis.

‘Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that. Can I have some more whisky?’

‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I can’t – before that – young girl — make a display of feelings such as I – feel. It would appal her. And as I can envisage – no possible relationship with her of
that
kind – ’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Francis, ‘though whether it would be a good idea is another matter.’

‘Don’t talk such utter — It’s a question of morals and of – everything. She cannot possibly feel — for me – almost an old man – It would just disgust her – she simply wouldn’t want to see me again.’

‘There’s a lot of assumptions there. As for morals well maybe, though I don’t know. Everything is another matter, especially these days. But will you enjoy going on and on meeting her and keeping your mouth shut?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well, then. Sorry to be so simple – minded. Hadn’t you better start pulling out?’

‘You’ve obviously never been in love.’

‘I have actually. And
awfully
. And – always – without hope—I’ve never had my love reciprocated ever. You can’t tell
me
—’

‘I can’t pull out. I’m only just in. I don’t know what to do. I feel I’m going mad, I’m trapped.’

‘Cut and run. Go to Spain or something.’

‘I can’t. I’m seeing her on Wednesday. We’re going to the opera. Oh Christ.’

‘If you want to suffer I suppose it’s your affair,’ said Francis, helping himself again to the whisky, ‘but if you want to get
out
, I think I should tell her if I were you. Reduce the tension and let the thing get more ordinary. That’ll help the cure. Secret brooding always makes it worse. Tell her in a letter. You’re a writer chap, you’d enjoy writing it all down.’

‘It would sicken her.’

‘You could do it with a sort of light touch – ’

‘There’s a dignity and a power in silence.’

‘Silence?’ said Francis. ‘You’ve broken that already.’

O my prophetic soul. It was true.

‘Of course I won’t tell anybody,’ said Francis. ‘But why after all did you tell me? You didn’t intend to and you’ll regret it. You’ll probably hate me for it. But please, please don’t if you can. You told me because you were frantic, because you felt an irresistible nervous urge. You’ll tell her, sooner or later, for the same reason.’

‘Never.’

‘There’s no need to make such heavy weather of it. As for her being sickened, it’s far more likely that she’ll laugh.’

‘Young people can’t take too seriously the feelings of oldies like us. She’ll be rather touched, but she’ll regard it as an absurd infatuation. She’ll be amused, fascinated. It’ll make her day.’

‘Oh get out,’ I said, ‘get out.’

‘Brad, you are cross with me, don’t be, it wasn’t my fault you told me.’

‘Get out.’

‘Brad, what about Priscilla?’

‘Do anything you think fit. I leave it to you.’

‘Aren’t you coming over to see her?’

‘Yes, yes. Later. Give her my love.’

Francis got as far as the door. I was still sitting and rubbing my eyes. Francis’s funny bear face was all creased up with anxiety and concern and he suddenly resembled his sister, when she had become so absurd, looking at me tenderly in the indigo dark of our old drawing – room.

‘Brad, why don’t you make a thing of Priscilla?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Make her your life – line. Go all out to help her. Really make a job of it. Take your mind off this.’

‘You don’t know what this is like.’

‘Then do the other. Try and make her. Why not?’

‘What?’

‘Why shouldn’t you have an affair with Julian Baffin? It wouldn’t do her any harm.’

‘You vile — thing – Oh why did I tell you, why did I tell
you
, I must have been insane – ’

‘Well, I’ll keep mum. All right, all right, I’m going.’

When he was gone I simply ran berserk round the house. Why oh why oh why had I broken my silence. I had given away my only treasure and I had given it to a fool. Not that I was concerned about whether Francis would betray me. Some much more frightening things had been added to my pain. In my chess game with the dark lord I had made perhaps a fatally wrong move.

Later on I sat down and began to think over what Francis had said to me. At least I thought over some of it. About Priscilla I did not think at all.

My dear Bradley,

I have lately got myself into the most terrible mess and I feel that I must lay the whole matter before you. Perhaps it won’t surprise you all that much. I have fallen desperately in love with Christian. I can imagine your dry irony at this announcement. ‘Falling in love ? At your age? Really!’ I know how much you despise what is ‘romantic’. This has been, hasn’t it, one of our old disagreements. Let me assure you that what I feel now has nothing to do with rosy dreaming or ‘the soppy’. I have never been in a
grimmer
mood in my life, nor I think in a more horribly
realistic
one. Bradley, this is the real thing, I’m afraid. I am completely floored by a force in which, I suspect, you simply do not believe! How can I convince you that I am in
extremis
? I hoped to see you on several occasions lately to try to explain, to
show
you, but perhaps a letter is better. Anyway, that’s point one. I am
really
in love and it’s a terrible experience. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite like this before. I’m turned inside out, I’m living in a sort of myth, I’ve been depersonalized and made into somebody else. I feel sure, by the way, that I’ve been
completely transformed
as a writer. These things connect, they must do. I shall write much better
harder
stuff in future, as a result of this, whatever happens. God, I feel hard, hard, hard. I don’t know if you can understand.

This brings me to point two. there are two women, one of whom I love, the other of whom I do not propose at all to abandon. Of course I care for Rachel. But there is alas such a thing as getting tired of somebody. Our marriage is there, but it is thoroughly tired, exhausted, the spirit has left it I fear for ever. I see this so clearly
now
. There is no deep enlivening connection any more. I have for some time had to look elsewhere for real love, and my affection for Rachel has become something so habitual as to be almost feigned. However I shall hold on to her, I shall hold on to them both because I’ve
got
to, to abandon either now would be some sort of death, so what must be will be, and that much is clear. And if it means running two establishments it means running two establishments. Other men have done this. Thank God I can afford it. Rachel guesses a bit (nothing like the shattering truth) but I have not spoken to her yet. I know that I can, in terms of my affections,
hold
them both. (Why should one fetl there’s only a limited amount of love to be distributed ?) It is only the first phase which will be difficult, I mean setting up. Habit will smooth ruffled feathers. I will hold them and give them both love. I know this is the sort of talk that disgusts you. (You are rather easily disgusted actually.) But believe me this is something I see with great clarity and
purity
, it is not anything romantic or ‘messy’. And I don’t think it’s easy, I just think it’s necessary.

The third point is about you. How do you come in? Well, you just
are
absolutely in. I wish you weren’t, but you can in fact be useful. Excuse this cold directness. Perhaps now you can see what I mean by ‘hard’, ‘pure’ and the rest. Briefly, I have
got
to have your help. I know in the past we have feuded, we have loved. We are old friends and old enemies, but much more friends, or rather the friend includes the enemy and not vice versa. You understand. You are connected with both of these women. If I say that I want you to release the one and console the other I am saying very roughly and boorishly what I want from you. Rachel cares for you very much, I know that. What there may have been, lately or at some stage, ‘between you’, I do not ask. I am not a jealous man and I know that Rachel has had, at various times and of course especially now, a good deal to put up with. I think that, in this unavoidable tribulation, you can be a great support to her. It will do her good to have a
friend
to whom she can complain about me! I want you, and this is the immediate specific thing, to see her and to tell her about me and Chris. I think it is psychologically right that you should tell her and that will sort of set the scene for what follows. Tell her this really is ‘something big’, not just momentary like things in the past. Tell her about ‘two establishments’ and so on. Break it to her and make her both see the worst and see how it can all work and be not too bad. This sounds awful on paper. But I have, I suppose, become through the power of love, awful, relentless. I am sure that if you will speak to Rachel frankly about this (and I mean soon, today, tomorrow) she will become at once resigned to it. It will also of course create a very special bond between you and her. As to whether this will please you I do not inquire.

About Christian, there is a problem too which concerns you. I have not yet said, though of course I have implied, how she feels. Well, she loves me. A lot has happened in the last few days. They have been probably the most eventful days of my whole life. What Christian was saying to you the last time you saw her was of course a sort of joke, a mere result of high spirits, as I imagine you realized. She is such a gay affectionate person. However she is not indifferent to you and she wants something from you now which is rather hard to name: a sort of
ratification
of the arrangement I have been describing, a sort of final reconciliation and settling of old scores and also the assurance, which I’m sure you can give, that you will still be her friend when she is living with me. I might add that Christian, who is a very scrupulous person, is extremely concerned about Rachel’s rights and whether Rachel will be able to ‘manage’. I hope that here too you can give some reassurance. Rachel is strong too. They are really two marvellous women. Bradley, do you follow all this? I feel such a mixture of joy and fear and sheer hard
will
, I’m not sure if I’m expressing myself clearly.

I shall deliver this by hand and will not try to see you at once. But soon, I mean later today or tomorrow I would like to talk to you. You will be coming to see Priscilla of course, and we could meet then. There is no need to delay your talk with Rachel till you’ve seen me. The sooner that happens the better. But I’d like to see you before you see Chris alone. God, does this make sense? It is an
appeal
, and that should tickle your vanity. You are in a strong position for once. Please help me. I ask in the name of our friendship.

Arnold.

 

PS If you hate all this for God’s sake be at least kind and don’t give me any sort of hell about it. I may sound rational but I’m feeling terribly crazy and upset. I so much don’t want to hurt Rachel. And please don’t rush round to Chris and upset her, just when some things have become clear. And don’t see Rachel either unless you can do it quietly and like I asked. Sorry, sorry.

 

I received this curious missive on the following morning. A little while ago it would have caused me a mixture of strong emotions. As it was, love can so deaden one to external matters that I might as well have been perusing the laundry bill. I read it through once and then put it away and forgot it. The only difference it made was that it established the impossibility now of my going to see Priscilla. I went to a flower shop and gave them a cheque to send her flowers every day.