A Word Child (38 page)

Then she made a little sound, it was a kind of sigh, a kind of groan, as if she were too choked to speak, the most wonderful communication in the world. She took a step as if to move away. I turned with her and took her in my arms and drew her body closely against mine. Her face was pressed against my shoulder and I heard the sigh again. We stood perfectly quiet.

I released her. I was almost sobbing myself, each breath came in an audible gasp. My heart was rending me with its violence.

‘Oh Kitty, Kitty, I love you.'

‘Hilary — '

‘I love you, I'm terribly sorry, forgive me, I can't help it, I love you, I worship you — '

‘Hilary — my dear — ' She had come back to me. I put my arms round her shoulders and kissed her, first hastily, then slowly. It was impossible that this could really be happening. I kissed her, I opened my eyes, I saw her spangled cap, her dark creeping hair and beyond the snow now steadily falling. We moved apart again. With a distracted gesture she drew the cap off and tossed her head, then stood there gazing at me.

‘Kitty, I love you, listen, I love you. I thought I'd never be able to say it. I can. I love you. I don't mind if I die now.'

‘Hilary, I am so sorry — '

‘I know it's hopeless, I know it's mad, I know it's wicked, I know you don't care for me, how could you. But I'm so grateful to you, just for this, just for tonight, even if we never meet again you've made me happy to the end of my life. I'm so glad you're there in the world, oh my God, oh Kitty, it's so wonderful just to say your name, I feel as if I could faint and lie at your feet and die, if only I could die now, if only I could drown — '

‘Hilary, please — '

‘All right, I'll stop, I'll go, I know I don't exist for you — '

‘But you do, you do — '

‘Oh Kitty — '

‘Of course you do. I've felt so sorry for you. And I've been thinking about you for years and I thought I'd never meet you. And then suddenly you were there and you were so sort of complete and real, and I pitied you so much and you had thought so much about it too, about the past, and suffered so much, and you were so honest and so helpless and like a child, and I couldn't help — '

‘What couldn't you help, Kitty?'

‘Caring about you and wanting to — Oh I so much don't want to hurt you. I want to make things well for you, to take the nightmares away from you — '

‘You do, you will. Oh Kitty, Kitty, thank you, you pitied me, thank you — '

We stood staring, arms hanging limply down, dazed by the suddenness and the strangeness of what happened. I was panting with anguish and with joy, pumping my steaming breath out into the cold air, feeling the snow now upon my hair, upon my eyebrows, upon my eyelashes.

‘I don't know what it means,' she said. ‘Forgive me — '

‘Don't say that — you've been so — so gracious — so kind — '

‘I must leave you now. I shouldn't have — Oh my dear dear Hilary — '

‘But I'll see you again, won't I, I must see you. Just let me see you again — '

‘I'll write to you.'

‘You're not angry with me? I'm so very sorry I — I couldn't help myself — '

‘I'm not angry. God bless you, God bless you — I must go — '

‘But you will see me again?'

‘I'll write — '

‘Oh Kitty, I'm so happy — even if the world ends I'm happy — '

It mustn't end,' she said. ‘I mean, you must be all right, you must be. God bless you. Good night.'

And she was gone. I stood for a while groaning aloud in an ecstasy of torment. Then I knelt down in the snow, covering my face.

The time was now five minutes past eight, and I was at the Impiatts' house as I always was at this time on a Thursday. I was in the drawing-room. Laura and Freddie were there. Also Christopher.

I had no memory of leaving the Chelsea embankment. I found myself in the King's Road, walking very fast, dodging people, my face blazing. There is a sense of one's own face as stretched, as thinned, which goes with extreme joy. I felt as if my face were simply a stretched skin, the features vanished, the pure radiance blazing through. Of course it was terrible, of course it was agonizing, of course it was possible that we should never meet again. But I had kissed her. I had told her I loved her. I had heard her speak my name and say that she cared for me. Of course this was simply pity and the fanciful romanticism of an idle woman. But she had spoken so kindly and she had let me kiss her and she had not said that we must never meet again.

I reached Sloane Square station and took a fivepenny ticket and went down onto the westbound platform and into the bar. I ordered a gin. I sat down. I felt that I had received, somehow, the truth itself, the touchstone itself, as if this were something simply and unconditionally handed over. Yet what I had received was also impossible. I did not want to dwell upon the impossibility, I did not want yet to think, I wanted just to enjoy my new possession in a glorified untroubled present. And it occurred to me after a while, as the mechanical habitual part of my mind soberly reminded me that it was Thursday, that the best way to continue in a state of pure unexamined joy was to be with other people, and thus the obvious thing to do was to go along as usual to dinner at the Impiatts.

I rang the bell and Laura let me in, but without saying anything or even looking at me returned at once to the drawing-room. I took off my coat and shook it — it was very damp and a little speckled with snow flakes, though in fact the snow had now almost ceased — and hung it up on a coat hanger. I dried my hair on a dry end of my scarf. I went into the drawing-room.

‘Hello,' I said. ‘It's almost stopped snowing.'

I realized that I had entered into the middle of a tense silence.

Freddie, looking very grim, was standing with his back to the fire. Laura was staring at him with a peculiar bright-eyed intensity. She was wearing an ordinary day dress, not one of her robes. Christopher, wearing a suit and tie, was very red in the face, staring at the floor. Freddie, who was looking at Laura when I entered, now looked at me. He said, ‘Why have you come?'

‘It's Thursday, isn't it?'

‘Have you forgotten what happened last night?'

The extraordinary thing was that I had. Dreams have an inbuilt tendency to be forgotten, an ingredient of oblivion. Perhaps certain drug experiences have this too. I could now clearly remember both the great gentle beast and the metaphysical equation, but I had completely forgotten that Freddie had arrived at one in the morning and that I had told him that Laura was not there and that I had subsequently sent Laura home in a taxi with Jimbo.

‘Oh of course,' I said, ‘I do remember now.'

‘Yes, I suppose you do!' said Freddie.

‘I was drugged,' I said. ‘I'm very sorry. Christopher, will you explain?'

‘Well — er — ' said Christopher, looking at his feet.

‘There you are,' said Freddie.

‘He was drugged,' said Laura. ‘So was I.'

‘He seemed perfectly normal when I saw him,' said Freddie, ‘except that he seemed recently to have had his clothes off!'

‘I shouldn't have said you weren't there,' I said to Laura. ‘I see that now.'

‘I think Christopher had better go,' said Freddie. ‘I can't think what possessed you to invite him.'

‘I didn't think Hilary would come.'

‘I'm sorry, Christopher, no one blames you for anything. I'd like to talk to you again about the pantomime, but not tonight.'

‘I want Christopher to stay,' said Laura. ‘Christopher, you are to stay.'

‘I didn't go to bed with Laura,' I said to Freddie. ‘Did I, Laura? Is that what you think?'

‘I'd better go,' said Christopher.

‘Christopher, I forbid you to go,' said Laura.

‘Are we going to have any dinner?' I said. ‘I'm fearfully hungry.'

‘I don't care what you did or didn't do,' said Freddie, ‘I don't want you in this house again.'

‘Am I to go now, then?'

‘Hilary, I forbid you to go,' said Laura.

‘Freddie, you really have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.'

‘You've been coming here for years,' said Freddie, ‘you've been a bloody nuisance with your Thursdays. We've refused hundreds of invitations because of you. We've entertained you, we've fed you, we've stayed in to be bored by you, and it's never occurred to you in all this time to offer us as much as a drink.'

‘A drink? You mean round at my place? I didn't think you'd want to come.'

‘That doesn't matter,' said Laura, ‘about Hilary not — '

‘Freddie, I'm terribly sorry, if I had thought for a second that you wanted me to invite you round — '

‘I didn't!' said Freddie. ‘Don't worry!'

‘But I thought you said — '

‘I think I'd better go,' said Christopher.

‘Nobody is to leave the room,' said Laura.

‘Laura,' I said, ‘do tell Freddie that it's not like he thinks.'

‘You've been coming here for years,' said Freddie, ‘and drinking us out of house and home, and taking it all for granted and never uttering a word of thanks and then you start intriguing behind my back. I know it's not important, Laura has told me all about it — '

‘I haven't,' said Laura.

‘I know it's not important, but it's disgusting and I won't have it. Thank God you've at least had the decency to resign from the office.'

‘I didn't resign because of Laura!'

‘You're not even gentleman enough to admit it.'

‘A gentleman doesn't have to admit what isn't true, even in a situation like this one.'

‘You're a rotter, a complete cad. I can't think why I didn't realize it before. I might have expected this — '

‘From someone who came out of the gutter.'

‘That has nothing to do with it.'

‘Of course proles who haven't been to public schools don't know how to behave themselves.'

‘I suppose I can excuse you for falling in love with my wife — '

‘But I haven't, I didn't — '

‘The sheer meanness of this denial — '

‘I'm not in love with Laura!'

‘You told Tommy you were.'

‘I may have let her think it just to shut her up. Tommy was dead keen to imagine there was another woman — '

‘Hilary,' said Laura, ‘how can you tell such awful lies.'

‘Which lies, what—?'

‘I know you're trying to help me but it's very much better at this stage to tell the truth, and that's what I suggest we all do.'

‘I really must go,' said Christopher, ‘I'm sure you can explain everything very much more easily if I'm not there.'

‘But Laura, dear, I am telling the truth!'

‘I agree with Christopher,' said Freddie. ‘I suggest he goes and we sort the matter out between the people involved.'

‘But he is involved.'

‘We don't need “witnesses”. I don't want to know what Christopher saw.'

‘He didn't see anything.'

‘I'm going to have another drink,' said Laura.

‘Can I have a drink?' I said. ‘I haven't had one yet.'

Laura poured out some neat whisky for herself. I went and helped myself to a generous dose of gin and vermouth. I suddenly saw that Christopher was trembling.

Laura was wearing a smart unobtrusive dress of blue tweed and her hair, though undone, had been neatly combed down her back. It was not anything like as long as Biscuit's. Laura's prominent brown eyes were horse-wild and her emphatic voice a trifle higher and louder than usual. She looked partly like an experienced hospital matron taking charge of an accident, and partly like an ageing actress playing Lady Macbeth with studied moderation. She drank a measured amount of the whisky as if it were medicine. ‘I am to blame,' she said.

‘Come, come, Laura,' I said, ‘don't let's exaggerate. No one is to
blame.
Freddie has simply made a mistake.'

‘No, he hasn't.'

‘I wish I had,' said Freddie.

‘I think I had better explain everything,' said Laura. ‘I'm sorry. But it is for the best. Especially as I feel that, after all the muddle which has occurred, Hilary must be exonerated.'

‘Oh, thanks.'

‘No one is to blame but me.'

‘Look here, Laura — ' Christopher began.

‘Be quiet, Christopher, leave this to me. I just want to state a few facts.'

‘Often a mistake,' I observed, ‘but thanks for the exoneration.'

‘Perhaps after all,' said Freddie, ‘we needn't — '

‘Yes we need. To begin with, of course Hilary is in love with me.'

‘I'm not!'

‘He thinks his denial will help me, but it's quite immaterial. Of course he has been in love with me for some time, but equally of course nothing has happened since I am not the least in love with him.'

‘But I'm not — '

‘I have felt sorry for Hilary, we all have, he is a lonely unhappy man. And let me say here that I never felt he ought to invite us back. Those who have rich lives should help those who have poor lives and not expect a return.'

‘Oh never mind about that,' said Freddie. ‘I don't know why I mentioned it.'

‘Hilary isn't well off and his flat is a slum — '

‘I wish I had invited you, I would have if I'd thought — '

‘He isn't the sort of person who is capable of entertaining, anyway.'

‘I hope you didn't think I was ungrateful — '

‘I felt sorry for him and I thought that his loving me at a distance was something quite harmless. Perhaps that was unwise of me.'

‘Look, Freddie, I am
not
in love with Laura.'