The Millstone (24 page)

"You seem to do quite a lot of writing these days. I see things with your name on quite often."

"Do you really?" I said, surprised, for I very rarely published anything in any publication with a circulation outside the profession. "You must read a lot," I said.

"Yes, I suppose I do," he said, and left it at that.

"I have to write now," I said, "for the money, I used to try not to, I don't really approve of that kind of thing, but money is money. It keeps her in zinc and castor oil ointment. They make one do a lot of things, babies, that one doesn't really approve of."

I went over to the corner cupboard and started to get out Lydia's Christmas drink and some glasses. There was a new bottle of whisky; I poured us both a glass and went to sit down.

"It suits you, having a baby," he said. "You look well on it. Even in proper electric light."

"I'm glad you think so."

"I saw Joe Hurt not so long ago. You still see something of him?"

"Quite a lot, one way and another. He's going out with the girl who shares my flat."

"Oh, really. You've gone off him, have you?"

"I was never really on him, to tell you the truth." I might as well, after all, tell him a bit of the truth, I thought. "Not really. I like him, though."

"You never used to share the flat. You had it to yourself."

"There again, you see, things have altered. I had to take a lodger. For the baby-sitting."

"And for the money."

"Yes, and for the money. Though I'm not too badly off, you know." And lest he should form any lurid pictures of my financial plight, I started to tell him about my thesis, and my new job, and my bright prospects. Having told him about the progress of my career, I felt entitled to ask him about his, so I did, but he proved as cagey as ever.

"Oh, I'm still doing more or less the same routine," he said evasively, in answer to my queries.

"Why don't you have a change?" I said, unable to prevent myself. "Why don't you do something different? Aren't you bored?"

"You said that last time I saw you," he said. "I don't see why I should be bored. For what it is, my job is extremely well paid. I don't see why I should change."

"You could get a job on the television," I said. "That must be better paid, isn't it?"

"Not spectacularly," said George. "And anyway, I don't want to be on the television."

"You'd be so good on the television," I said, unable to let the notion drop. "You'd look so wonderful on the television. You've got just the right kind of face for it, all lean and bony. You'd look wonderful on it. Then I could sit and watch you as well as hearing you."

I meant this, too, although he could never have guessed it; I would have liked to have done just that.

"I don't really want to be on the television," he repeated patiently. "It makes your life a misery, that machine. Wherever you go, you pay for it. Why are you so keen for me to be on it?"

"I told you," I said truthfully. "So I could sit and watch you."

"Well, why don't you go and be on it then? And then I could sit and watch you."

"
I
don't want to be on it," I said, "I have all sorts of far more important things to do."

"So have I," said George. "You're not the only one with a life of your own, you know."

Silence fell between us; I drank another mouthful of whisky and wondered what to do. There seemed to be some deadlock between us that could never be broken, for neither of us was given to breaking such things, so we might well sit there forever estranged, forever connected. I would not have minded if it could have been there that we could have stayed, but I knew that a connection so tenuous could not last, could not remain frozen and entranced forever, but must melt if so left, from the mere mortal warmth of continuing life. If one of us did not move towards the other, then we could only move apart. Like two fish, embalmed in the living frozen river, we eyed each other in silence through the solid resistant intervening air, and did not move. After a while, when silence itself threatened to become some kind of positive action, he spoke.

"Your hair," he said, "your hair is turning grey."

I raised a hand to my head and nodded, for it was true.

"It must be worry," I said. "Worry has driven me to it."

"What do you worry about?" he said with a gentleness that ignored the flippancy of my answer, and responded more to the white threads in my hair.

"Everything," I said, "everything."

"Tell me," he said.

"There's nothing to tell," I said, and thought of Octavia. Despite myself, I began to remember; I remembered how often I had reached for the phone, in those first months, to ring Broadcasting House and ask for George; how consciously I had restrained myself from going to the pub to see him, from walking the streets he might walk; how I had lain in bed at the hospital and listened through
my institution earphones for his voice, how I had wept and lain awake and wished to share the misery of my child's affliction and the joy of her joy, how I had endured and survived and spared him so much sorrow, and I thought that now I did not see how I could go back on what I had done.

"It was nothing," I said. "The baby was rather ill, but she's better now."

"I'm sorry about that," said George. "What was it, was it serious?"

"No, nothing serious," I said. "I just worry about everything, that's all."

"You must have had a bad time," said George. "You've lost weight. But it suits you."

"Oh, I can't complain," I said. "Others are worse off than me, aren't they? Why should I complain? Don't let me complain, tell me about you instead."

"There's nothing to tell," said George, "of any interest. I haven't had too good a year, but it's over now. Tell me about you. I'm more interested in you. Have your parents come back from Africa yet? They were in Africa, weren't they?"

"No, they haven't come back, they're going to India instead. They were supposed to be coming back, but they changed their minds and went to India."

"How do they like it there?"

"I don't know. They've only just gone."

"They get around, don't they?" said George. "I was thinking of going abroad myself."

"What for?"

"Oh, I don't know," said George, smiling down into his glass. "Just for a change. To get away. To see what turns up. There's nothing to keep me."

And he looked up at me, and I had the sense that I so often had with him, that he was on the verge of some confession, some confidence, some approach that once
made could never be denied. And I, for my part, felt myself almost capable of such a scene as I had made in the hospital, when more civilized communication had there failed me; I felt myself on the verge of tears and noise, and I held hard onto the arms of my chair to prevent myself from throwing myself on my knees in front of him, to beseech from him his affection, his tolerance, his pity, anything that would keep him there with me, and save me from being so much alone with my income tax forms, from lacking him so much. Words kept forming inside my head, into phrases like I love you, George, don't leave me, George. I wondered what would happen if I let one of them out into the air. I wondered how much damage it would do.

"What part of the world were you thinking of going to?" I said.

"Oh, I shan't really go," he said. "I was just thinking of going."

"I wouldn't want to go abroad," I said.

"I didn't ask you," he said, "but you can come with me, if you want."

"Can I really?" I emptied my glass. "And can I bring Octavia with me too? I couldn't go anywhere without Octavia."

"Not even with me?" said George.

"Not even with you," I said.

"I don't see why you shouldn't bring her," he said, "though I don't know anything about babies."

"My baby is a nice baby," I said. "She's a very pretty baby."

"How could she not be pretty?" he said, "with such a mother? And I like her name, too. It's a nice name, Octavia."

"I like it," I said, "though a lot of people don't. I called her after Octavia Hill."

"Octavia Hill," he said, "who was she? Wasn't she one of those heroines of feminism and socialism?"

"To tell you the truth," I said, admitting it for the first time, "I'm not quite sure exactly what she
did,
and once I'd chosen the name I didn't dare go and look her up in case she was unsuitable, or famous for something frightful. I think she was a socialist. I hope she was a socialist. Though I don't suppose it matters much, does it?"

"I don't suppose so," he said. "You'll bring her up the right way, won't you, whatever the other one did?"

"I don't know about the right way," I said. "It was right, I suppose, the way I was brought up, but it didn't do me much good, did it?"

"I don't know," said George. "You seem to have done all right, you seem to have done as well as anyone."

"How do you mean?" I said.

"Well," he said, "by your own accounts, you've got a nice job, and a nice baby. What more could anyone want?"

"Some people might want a nice husband too," I said.

"But not you, surely?" said George. "You never seemed to want a husband."

"No," I said, "perhaps I never did. Though I sometimes think it might be easier, to have one. It would be nice to have someone to fill in my income tax forms, for instance," and I pointed despairingly at the mess of papers laid out on the hearth rug.

"You can't have everything," said George.

"No, indeed," I said. "And I have more than most people, I admit."

"So do I," said George, "so do I. Though I, too, have my moments of weakness. Sometimes I feel it would be nice to have someone to iron my shirts. But then, you see, of course I know that I can always do it myself. As well as anyone else could. Just as you can probably make more sense of your income tax than most men could. So it's no argument, really, is it?"

We smiled at each other, feebly, overcast.

"Why don't you come and have a look at my baby?" I said.

"Wouldn't it waken her?" he said, reluctant.

"She never wakes," I said, and I led him along the corridor for my amusement and not for his, and opened the door of her room. There she lay, her eyes closed, her fists sweetly composed upon the pillow, and I looked from her face to George, and I acknowledged that it was too late, much much too late. It was no longer in me to feel for anyone what I felt for my child; compared with the perplexed fitful illuminations of George, Octavia shone there with a faint, constant and pearly brightness quite strong enough to eclipse any more garish future blaze. A bad investment, I knew, this affection, and one that would leave me in the dark and the cold in years to come; but then what warmer passion ever lasted longer than six months?

"She's beautiful," said George.

"Yes, isn't she?" I said.

But it was these words of apparent agreement that measured our hopeless distance, for he had spoken for my sake and I because it was the truth. Love had isolated me more securely than fear, habit or indifference. There was one thing in the world that I knew about, and that one thing was Octavia. I had lost the taste for half-knowledge. George, I could see, knew nothing with such certainty. I neither envied nor pitied his indifference, for he was myself, the self that but for accident, but for fate, but for chance, but for womanhood, I would still have been.

He followed me back along the corridor to the sitting room and there I asked him if he would have another drink. But I asked him in such a way that he would refuse, and he refused.

"I must be going now," he said. "I start work very early in the morning."

"Do you?" I said.

"It was nice to see you again," he said. "Look after yourself, won't you?" And he moved towards the door.

"Yes," I said, "I'll look after myself. Let me know if you do go away. If you go abroad."

"I'll let you know," he said. "And you, don't you worry so much."

"I can't help worrying," I said. "It's my nature. There's nothing I can do about my nature, is there?"

"No," said George, his hand upon the door. "No, nothing."