Babel Tower (25 page)

“Culvert would never countenance making one man happy at another’s expense,” retorted the lady, though she was inwardly troubled about adjustments of happiness to be made between herself, Culvert and Damian. “And your interest in bloodthirstiness, Colonel Grim, must stem from your own bloody nature, which you have acknowledged, and renounced, I believe.”

“My pleasures, in part,” he answered, “derive from the strategies of warfare, which have no place in our sealed and separate world, but may yet be needed to defend it. But I see that I have distressed you with my idle and perhaps wholly unfounded speculations, and I can
assure you that I take no pleasure at all in torturing the imagination of the fairer and gentler sex. Shall we return to La Tour Bruyarde?”

“I am reluctant to do so,” she answered, courteously enough. “The air is so balmy, the flowers and trees so soothing, despite the terrible fruit on the thorn trees in the next clearing. I feel well, out here, and would like to journey farther.”

“I do counsel you most strongly not to do so,” said he. “This is not a good place, not friendly to innocent humans, however it may wear a spring smile. Let me show you something, madame.”

“I do not wish to go back to the danglers,” said the lady, using the Colonel’s word to disguise her nausea at the thought of them.

“There is no need, madame. Break off a twig from a thorn tree in
this
clearing—a young twig, not a dead one.”

“Why should I?”

“Do it.”

So she put out her hand and broke off a green twig, with tight, energetic little buds. And from the severed end came a slow dark gout of blood, a clot of thick blood like a liver-coloured slug humping its way free, and behind it gushed a freshet of red blood, which sprayed her habit with fine scarlet drops. She drew back in horror, crying out, brushing her hand against her skirt so that her fingers in turn were blooded. She begged the Colonel earnestly to tell her the reason and meaning of this phenomenon.

“I do not know for certain,” he replied. “Various explanations have been put forth, all of them hypothetical, not to say, in certain cases, metaphysical. You will be aware, as a lady of culture, that the divine poet, Dante Alighieri, ascribes this phenomenon to the Wood of the Suicides in his journey through the Inferno, and the association of hanged men and this bloody sap persists also in the popular imagination in these parts. More vaguely, it is said that this is a place where so many men have been slaughtered, by the Krebs, or by others of their own kind, that the earth is drunk with blood and bonemeal; which bubbles up so prevalently that the trees cannot convert it to innocent green ichor, or phloem, or sap, but must regurgitate it in horror and disgust. And then there is a contrary legend, which asserts that the earth and the trees here hate men—like the Krebs, who are in some sense their foresters and
semblables
—and take pleasure in consuming the dead or the unwary who lie against their roots or under their shade. And there is also a tale, such as you will find all over the world, but without the attestation of bloody sap, that the trees are transfigured
men and women, or maybe transfigured Krebs, that the Krebs may be trees that walk, or that these trees and the Krebs may bear the same relation to each other as do the caterpillar and the butterfly—men’s ingenuity, and men’s dreaming, make reasons for everything, as bees make honey, or trees make fruit. I only know that to me the place gives off a scent of hatred and pain. I am not welcome here. Nor are you.”

The Lady Roseace shuddered with a primitive fear and disgust at these words, and allowed herself finally to be led back to her horse, and mounted by the Colonel.

They rode back over the plain to the Tower together; Roseace turned over many things in her mind. The sky was full of great full-bellied clouds, like flying clippers, like rolling drunkards, like racing steeds, fleeing before the wind. The Tower was above them, alternately in deep shadow, and bathed in brilliant golden light. It was not a shapely building, seen in this aspect. Its decaying ledges and terraces ran into one another, so that certain aspects appeared like a heap of rubble, or a rocky chaos, or an accidental heap. But under the sunlight, even from a distance, its inhabitants could be seen rushing zestfully about their business along couloirs and arcades, so that the huge mass pullulated with human life like an antheap. And the Lady Roseace, as she rode on, with the man of blood ambling quietly at her side, did not know if it was a longed-for home and haven, or voluntarily chosen
In-pace
, that is to say, dungeon.

“We are a Society for the Protection of Frederica,” says Tony Watson.

“A Society for the Promotion of the Fortunes of Frederica,” says Alan Melville.

They are meeting in Alexander Wedderburn’s flat in Great Ormond Street, where, it had been agreed, she would be most comfortable and least likely to be immediately discovered. Alexander, surprised by various dawn telephone calls, has given up his bed to Frederica and her son, whom it is difficult to separate from her. His bed is large and comfortable. Frederica, after a fitful sleep, woke in it in one of his shirts and thought grimly of the irony of finally coming where she had for so many years hopelessly desired to be. She has even left two or three token smears of blood on Alexander’s sheets, from the inflamed wound in her haunch. Alexander himself has passed a perfectly comfortable
night in his spare bedroom, but he is apprehensive. The three friends have given him a colourful and alarming account of the vengeful and violent nature of Nigel, whom Tony, perhaps unfortunately, has labelled the Axeman.

Their discussion of the future is horribly complicated by the presence of Leo, who sits beside Frederica on Alexander’s linen sofa and leans his body into hers, as though two could become one. Frederica looks ill. Tony says she must see a doctor. He is already thinking in terms of divorce: he thinks there must be a medical record of the wound,
now
, but cannot say so.

“It isn’t too bad,” says Frederica.

“It’s bad enough,” says Tony. “I can see you are in pain.”

Alexander pours coffee for everyone from his blue coffee-pot. He remembers pouring coffee for Daniel Orton from this pot on his arrival in London after his flight from Blesford. He thinks: I am a person to whom people persist in coming for help, despite the fact that I am not helpful, I am not useful, I am not kind and concerned.

It is Hugh Pink who says directly to Frederica, “What do you want to do?”

Frederica puts an arm round Leo’s head, an embrace which also half-muffles his ears.

“I can’t go back. That’s certain and might as well be said.”

Leo’s lips tighten. He does not speak.

“I need a place to be quiet, and think. I need work. I must be independent.”

Everyone looks at Leo.

“We shall have to think it out step by step,” says Frederica. “I need somewhere now where I can be with Leo. Later—Leo must think—”

“I do think,” says Leo. “I want to come. You want me to come, you do. I know you do. You do want me to come.”

“
Of course I do
,” says Frederica. “Only—”

She thinks of his pony, his settled journeys from kitchen and paddock, his little world. She thinks of starting her “career” with a small and anxious boy to look after.

“Only—” repeats Leo, his face quivering.

“Only nothing. We’ll find somewhere. Something.”

Alexander says, “I have an idea. It might even be a very good idea. What about Thomas Poole? He is living by himself—well, by himself with his children—in the Bloomsbury flat I used to lodge in. His wife
left him. She went off with the actor, Paul Greenaway, who was Van Gogh in my play. He has two teenage boys and a girl who is about twelve, and a little boy, Simon, who is eight, who is bigger than Leo. He runs the Crabb Robinson Institute for Adult Education—he could almost certainly find some classes for Frederica to teach—it’s a way of making part-time money that many women find helpful—he’s got space in that huge flat—he might help out. No one would think of looking for anyone there.”

“I liked him.” Frederica remembers Poole, a colleague of Alexander and her father at Blesford Ride School. “He was good as Spenser in your play.” Both Frederica and Alexander remember, and do not mention, Thomas Poole’s affair with the beautiful Anthea Warburton, herself then, like Frederica, only a schoolgirl, which had ended in pregnancy, abortion, and grief. The grief, Frederica remembers, had seemed to be more Thomas Poole’s. But appearances can be deceptive.

“If part-time teaching is a good thing,” says Alan Melville, “I can find you a few hours immediately at the Samuel Palmer School. Now the artists have a degree course, they have to study things other than art, and we teach them literature. It’s quite interesting.”

“And I could ask Rupert Parrott about proof-reading and writing reports on books,” says Hugh. “It’s dog’s-bodying, but it can be done at home. It’s a way in, to that world.”

“And there’s Wilkie’s television game,” says Tony. “And you could try to get some reviewing. That isn’t easy, but you could do it—”

“Work,” says Frederica, “I need
work.
”

“And then,” says Tony. “We can think out the rest. What you will do. In the long run.”

“We can,” says Frederica.

Alexander, Frederica and Leo arrive at Thomas Poole’s flat. This is a large, Edwardian mansion flat in Bloomsbury, on the sixth floor. Alexander lodged here in the late fifties when he was working on
The Yellow Chair.
Poole’s wife, Elinor, left suddenly in 1961 to join Paul Greenaway, who was playing in a revival of
Pygmalion
in New York. The Pooles’ four children, Chris, Jonathan, Lizzie and Simon were then fourteen, twelve, nine and five. They are now seventeen, fifteen, twelve and eight. The two elder boys are at Blesford Ride, where Alexander and Thomas met as teachers under Frederica’s father. Alexander still thinks of them as little boys, but Chris is already working
for university entrance. He asks after them as Poole shows them into his living-room, which was once Alexander’s bedroom. It has a big, corner bay-window, out of which can be seen, like a rocket landed from another world, the discs, dishes, turrets and antennae sprouting from the column of the new Post Office Tower.

It is not possible to discuss Frederica’s future in front of Leo, and it is still impossible, it seems, to detach Leo from Frederica’s side. He sits beside her on a pale Swedish sofa and twists his hand into the fold of her skirt. A young Austrian woman appears, Waltraut Röhde, with brown curls, a sweet petal face and weighdess bird-bones. Her smile is confidently shy. She tells them Lizzie is swimming, and Simon is in his room. She tells Leo she is bringing tea and chocolate torte. “Torte?” says Leo. “Keck,” says Waltraut. “Cake. I made it. It is good.”

Frederica looks round her. The walls are lined with books. She gives a little sigh. Thomas asks after her father; Frederica says she has not heard from him; Alexander says he has had several communications, because of the Steerforth Committee. “He is in his element,” says Alexander. “He has his grandchildren, his house on the moors, his evening classes. We were all afraid for him, when his occupation was gone. And he is in his element.”

Waltraut returns with a tray of teacups, and again with the chocolate torte. The chocolate torte attracts Simon Poole, who is a leggy boy with a delicate neck and shining straight brown hair flopping over his brow. He is shy, but courteous, and greets everyone. Waltraut tells Leo that Simon wishes to show him his railway. Simon agrees to this in a friendly mutter. Waltraut, whose English is more resourceful than her accent might suggest, tells Leo it has three separate tracks, a turntable, two stations and a Pullman coach. Simon says, “I’m making a new points system.” Maybe because both Waltraut and Simon are so patently gentle and harmless, maybe because he is tired of gripping, maybe because the chocolate has soothed his brain, Leo allows himself to be led away. Frederica finds her hands are shaking. She tells the two friends in a rush that she can’t talk in front of Leo, that she can’t ever go back to Leo’s father, that she must have work, she must start her life again, that she cannot think what should happen to Leo. “I can’t go back, I can’t keep him, I can’t send him back.
I can’t think
,” says Frederica to Thomas and Alexander, who look at her with concern and affection.

Thomas proposes, as Alexander had hoped, that Frederica should for the time being come to live in the flat. There is room, at least
whilst the big boys are away at school. He, Waltraut and Frederica can look after Lizzie and Simon and Leo, and also do their own work. He can, in fact, offer her at least one evening class at the Crabb Robinson Institute, since one of his teachers is having a difficult pregnancy and has been ordered to rest. It is on “The Development of the Novel Form” or something like that. “I think I know you well enough to know you could make a go of it,” says Thomas Poole, adding, perhaps unfortunately, “It must run in the blood, I should think.”

“I always said I would never teach,” says Frederica.

“We all said that,” says Alexander.