Penmarric (75 page)

Afterward at Penmarric we lunched with William and Jan-Yves. Jan-Yves, who was staying with William and Charity, had so far made no plans to build a house for himself and I began to suspect he had already spent the money I had given him for the purpose; the answers he gave when I questioned him about his future plans were ominously vague. As always it didn’t take me long to feel annoyed with him. He really was a tiresome youth.

Meanwhile Helena was inquiring after Charity and expressing surprise that she hadn’t joined us all at Penmarric for lunch. There was nothing of the snob about Helena. She knew what Charity was and what she had been but she was still willing to be friendly toward her—within limits, of course. She wouldn’t have invited Charity to dinner—or to a lunch that wasn’t informal, but she meant well and I didn’t blame her for paying lip service to the conventions.

However, William was more of a snob than Helena and evidently saw nothing strange about keeping his marriage morganatic. “Charity’s shy of Penmarric,” he said lightly, “and of you too, I think, Helena. You’ll have a hard time getting her to call here.”

The prospect didn’t seem to bother him too much. He showed no signs of trying to change his wife or raise her up to his own social level, so I supposed he was content for her to remain as she was. It was certainly a curious marriage. I couldn’t see how it could ever be a success.

After our guests had left Helena and I motored over to Zillan to see my mother. I enjoyed the couple of hours we spent with her, and by the time we returned to Penmarric I was feeling less embarrassed by Helena and more at ease in her presence.

In the hope that now I was in a better frame of mind everything might yet be well between us, I went to bed with her. But it was useless. The next morning I avoided the mine and nerved myself instead to stop in St. Just to see Dr. Salter.

It was difficult to tell him, but I managed it somehow. I was so strung up over the business that I had a hard time keeping calm, but I controlled myself so that he didn’t see how upset I was. I liked old Salter. He had brought me into the world, and there’s something comforting about a family doctor who knows not only one’s own medical history but the history of one’s family as well. After listening sympathetically he proceeded to act as if the matter were no more than a transient inconvenience, and told me not to worry.

“Often happens on honeymoons,” he said cheerfully. “Honeymoons are often a sadly overrated part of getting married. All that strain and stress beforehand—by the time you board the train with your bride you’re physically exhausted! I’m sure this is nothing for you to concern yourself about.”

I began to feel better. When he had examined me he straightened his back and took off his spectacles.

“Absolutely nothing wrong with you,” he said emphatically. “No reason on earth for you to worry—in fact I strongly advise you not to worry. Don’t rush. Let things take their time. The more you worry the more difficult you make things for yourself.”

The enormity of my relief was beyond description. After so much wretchedness it was wonderful to hear someone tell me everything was going to be all right.

“By the way,” he added as an afterthought, “when did you last have intercourse?”

The question was like a blow between the eyes.

I saw he had not understood, but although I tried to tell the truth the truth refused to be spoken. In the end I said evasively, not looking at him, “I haven’t been near another woman since I began to take an interest in my wife.”

He laughed, made some jovial comment about being out of practice and that he had no doubt all would soon be well.

“And if it isn’t?” I said.

“Well …” He paused to consider this unlikely possibility. “Come back and see me in a fortnight’s time if you’re still having difficulty, and we’ll discuss the situation further.”

I thanked him, shook hands and walked away from his house toward the mine. But my relief was gone, my depression was crawling back to repossess me and a chill wind blew toward me as I turned to face the sea.

I went back to him two weeks later. He was surprised to see me and treated the matter much more seriously.

“You’d better have a more detailed examination,” he said. “I happen to know there’s an excellent man at Falmouth who’s an expert on this kind of trouble. Could you travel to Falmouth to see him?”

I could and did. The doctor at Falmouth was an ex-navy man, salty and blunt. I trusted him at once and became sure he could help me, but he couldn’t. After I had seen him several times he merely sat back in his chair and told me there was nothing he could do.

“The tests were all negative,” he said tersely. “There’s nothing physically wrong with you.”

I felt desperate. My nerves were stretched tight with the strain. “There must be something wrong,” I said. “There must be. I don’t understand.”

“If you want a second opinion I could recommend you to a man in London—”

“No, I trust you. If you say there’s nothing wrong with me I believe you.” I twisted my hands together, trying to think what I could do next. “I don’t understand” was all I could say. “I just don’t understand.”

There was a silence.

“Look,” he said at last with a gentleness I wouldn’t have expected from him, ”I’ll tell you what I’d advise you to do. I’d advise you to go to London and see a doctor I know in Harley Street—”

“But I’ve already told you,” I said blankly. “I trust your judgment. If you say there’s nothing physically wrong with me I believe you. I don’t want a second opinion.”

“This doctor isn’t interested in that branch of medicine. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“A psychiatrist!” My nerves snapped at the insult. Tension made me lose my temper quicker than I would normally have done. “A psychiatrist! No thanks, I’m not having anything to do with that kind of nonsense—I’m not paying out money to some bloody quack when I’m as sane as you are! If you seriously think—”

“It’s you who should be doing the serious thinking, Mr. Castallack.”

There was a silence. After a moment he leaned forward in his chair and began to talk rapidly in a sharp, abrupt voice. “Listen,” he said. “You’re not a fool. You’re an intelligent man of thirty-two and there’s no reason why I should beat around the bush with you. I’m not going to tell you there’s nothing wrong with you whatsoever. There is. There’s something very wrong with you, but it’s not something I’m able to cure—it’s not even something I know much about. So I suggest you go and see a doctor who specializes in this field of medicine. It’s the logical, sensible thing to do, can’t you see? All I’ve proved is that there’s nothing wrong with you physically. Well, that’s fine but it’s not going to help your relationship with your wife, is it? It doesn’t cure your problem—whatever your problem may be, and you do have a problem, make no mistake about that. For some reason you have a block in your mind which is preventing you from achieving a normal sexual relationship. I don’t know what that reason is. You may. Or you may not. You may have an inkling of an idea what it is but it’s a safe bet to say you really have no knowledge how extensive the block is or how you can overcome it. You need help—but it’s a help that I’m unable to give you. So take my advice and go to London to see this man because he’s an expert and he’ll find the problem, whatever it is, and help you to try and overcome it and lead a normal life.”

There was another silence. I no longer found his suggestion insulting, but I was still unwilling to admit the solution be proposed was either right or necessary. I knew what was wrong with me. I knew what kept getting in my way. It was the memory of that scene at Brighton. I didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell me I couldn’t help connecting sex with violence and suffering, and I couldn’t see how he could offer me a cure when the only possible cure could lie in my will power to overcome my aversion.

But then I remembered that night at the Metropole. Will power hadn’t been much help to me then. If will power was all that was needed to cure me I wouldn’t have been sitting there in that room in Falmouth.

“You think a psychiatrist would cure me?” I said slowly.

“I don’t know, but at least there’s a chance. Why don’t you give it a try?”

I thought of Helena. I didn’t want her to be unhappy. I thought of the son I wanted. The memory of Esmond flashed tantalizingly before my eyes.

“All right,” I said abruptly. “What do I have to lose? Who is this psychiatrist and how do I make an appointment to see him?”

“… so that was why I couldn’t make love to my wife,” I told the psychiatrist. It was odd how easy it was to talk to him. He didn’t say much, so the onus was on me to fill up the silence. I’d thought he’d fire questions at me the whole time but it wasn’t like that at all. “I couldn’t make love to her because as soon as she wiped off her lipstick I was reminded of my mother at Brighton. Well, it’s understandable, isn’t it? I associate sex with memories of my mother suffering. I couldn’t make love to my wife because the idea of sex left me cold instead of exciting me.”

I looked around the room. It was quiet and peaceful. A plant drooped from a pot in a corner and the Venetian blinds were slanted so that the light fell obliquely across the floor.

“After that first failure,” I said, working it out carefully, “I was held back not so much by the memory of Brighton—although that was still there—but by the fear of failing again. The more I failed the worse it got. That makes sense too, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. He was a little man, a foreigner, with sad dark eyes and a small drooping moustache. I wondered what he was thinking about me and thought I could make a guess or two at the diagnosis lurking behind his silence. I decided to put him back on course.

“I suppose you think I’m in love with my mother,” I said. “Isn’t that what all you disciples of Freud would think? I was reading about Freud the other day in the encyclopedia.”

He said nothing but permitted himself a polite smile.

“Well, that’s a lot of nonsense as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “My mother and I are close and I’m not ashamed to admit it, but she doesn’t have much influence on how I run my life and I’ve always gone my own way without being tied to her apron strings. We do get on well together, it’s true, but if her circumstances had been different it’s possible I might not have chosen to spend all those years living with her at the farm. I’d have set up house on my own somewhere, I dare say, or shared rooms with someone my own age as one does at school—or as the undergraduates do up at Oxford. I enjoyed living at the farm and I liked my mother’s company, but to tell the truth I did get a bit tired of all those women—my mother, my mother’s great-aunt, my mother’s servants … Still, it would be wrong to complain. I always had plenty of friends of my own sex and whenever I wasn’t at the farm I was always in the company of men. But you see I couldn’t have left my mother at the farm. I was all she had. She had no one else to look after her. My brothers and sisters were too busy leading their own lives and my father had opted out of all his responsibilities where she was concerned, but at least I was there—at least although my father had left her she had me standing by to take his place. Well, I mean, I couldn’t have left her, could I? It wouldn’t have been right, and I didn’t want to leave her anyway. As I said, I liked living at the farm, although farming, never meant as much to me as my life at the mine …

“What drew me to mining? Oh, I don’t know. I was just a born miner, I suppose. I was always unconventional. My father tried to cast me in the traditional mold—you know, public school, upper class and so on—but I wasn’t standing for any of that. He and his class! They’d made my mother unhappy and I didn’t want anything to do with them. I left public school as soon as I had any choice in the matter and went back to live among the miners. My father was furious, but he couldn’t stop me. He tried to keep the mine closed then, but I got it open. I fought him over that mine. The mine meant so much to me. I suppose it’s hard for you, a foreigner, to understand the magic of the Cornish mines. It’s as if the mines are alive—sometimes they seem to live and breathe like people. A lot of the Cornish mines are called women’s names—Wheal Mary Anne, Wheal Margery, Wheal Harriet—because the miners like to think of the mines having personalities of their own. My mine is called Sennen Garth. No one knows why except that Sennen is the name of the nearest fishing village beyond St. Just. The mine next door is called King Walloe because at one time it was rich enough to keep a king in luxury all his life … or so they say. But King Walloe’s dead now. My father wanted Sennen Garth to stay dead but I got it alive again, I got it back on its feet …

“It’s warm down the mine. Sometimes it’s hot as hell. It’s wet and dark and exciting. It’s an adventure. Yes, I suppose it’s dangerous, but I’m careful—only a bad miner takes foolhardy risks—and I know I won’t get killed there. I’m never afraid in my mine. I never have to worry about anything when I’m there. Outside above ground I always have so many worries and distractions, yet when I’m in my mine I’m always at peace. But I don’t suppose you could ever understand.

“My father didn’t understand. No, we didn’t get on. Perhaps we were temperamentally too alike—I don’t know. All I know is that he was a damned bad husband to my mother and a damned bad father to me. Maybe he didn’t mean to be. Maybe I never really knew him, but that’s my opinion on the subject and I don’t expect to revise it in the foreseeable future. I was sorry when he died and guilty too because he died in the middle of one of my quarrels with him, but to be honest he wasn’t much help to me when he was alive, and he certainly wasn’t much help to my mother either. Why, even before they separated I remember how often he used to leave her alone at Penmarric. No wonder she turned to me for companionship! She never got companionship from him …

“Yes, I was her favorite. What of it? I was the best of the bunch anyway, so I’m not surprised she singled me out from the others. The others couldn’t have helped her as I did, and she needed someone to help her back in those days when … well, as far back as I can remember. Yes, as far back as I can remember I was looking after my mother and keeping her company, and the older I grew the more necessary it became to take my father’s place at her side and step right into his shoes. Hell, what else could I have done? It was my duty, wasn’t it? My mother was all alone in the world and she had no one else to look after her except me. Of course I had to take his place! Damn it, I wanted to take his place! I was sick to death of seeing her so unhappy and all I wanted was to look after her so that no one could ever make her unhappy again. She was so beautiful, you see, she was such a unique and exceptional woman, and it seemed all wrong that she should have to suffer so much. I couldn’t bear to see her unhappy.” I looked at him. It was suddenly vital that he should understand. “You do see, don’t you?” I said. “I just couldn’t bear to see her suffer. That’s all it was really. I just couldn’t stand to see her unhappy.”