The Green Knight (11 page)

 

 

 

 

“And the many many times that I took her in my arms, just to save her from the foggy foggy dew!” '

‘I like the descant,' said Clement to Louise. The girls were singing in the Aviary below.

‘That's Aleph.'

‘With that soprano she should have a singing teacher.'

‘She had a piano teacher at school.'

Clement was about to protest against the weary irrelevant reply, why had
he
not, long ago, paid for Aleph's singing lessons? Everything in his life now seemed to signal: too late. The little flat in Fulham where he had lived for years remained provisional, a
pied à terre
. Of course he was often away, involved in some play in the provinces or else with theatre people he knew in Paris. He even thought at one time of moving to Paris. He did not exactly dislike his flat, but he lacked faith in it. He did not buy pretty things for it. He ‘starved it', as Louise said. The only interesting object in it was an early picture by Moy of a girl among some flowers. Clement was still
waiting
for the storm wind or
tsunami
which would carry him to some much higher level.

He had made a habit (of course not unannounced) of, once or twice a week, walking over to see Louise in the evenings. He liked London walking. These evening meetings had become easier since Louise and the girls now took their meals at different times, Louise having ‘high tea' about seven, and the girls having supper, cooked usually by Moy, sometimes by Sefton, at eight-thirty. Louise sometimes made special dishes for them which could be heated up. This arrangement, like many such customs in the house, had somehow come about automatically, as a confluence of desires or ‘general will'. The girls, who had quietly ‘acquired' the Aviary, had now taken over the kitchen. So Louise now retired earlier, disappearing to her bedroom before the girls, finishing their evening meal, returned to the Aviary. This regime made for her a slow elegiac ending to the day. She read, she sewed, she listened to music, she
thought
. She had never, in her married life, had so much regular solitude. Into this hall of meditation, however, as into a space prepared, Clement was now entering. Perhaps Louise, enjoying her new peace and quiet, was also aware of a new loneliness. Perhaps Clement sensed this, perhaps he was sorry for her. Their relations, though of such long and firm standing, were obscure, simple and limited, even awkward. Yet, with all this, they talked easily enough. Louise, who did not often ‘go out' or ‘dress up', wore usually in all seasons a uniform of cardigan, blouse and skirt. This evening she was wearing a richly nut-brown winter dress with a blue and green silk scarf. Clement thought, I gave her that scarf long ago. Then he thought, no, of course Teddy gave it to her. Her ‘stiff' hair swept back off her pale unmarked brow, tidied in this way by nature. She avoided hairdressers, Aleph cut her hair. Her light-golden-brownish wide-apart eyes gazed benignly at her visitor, and her mouth pouted a little with friendly restful pleasure. She was sewing, mending the lining of an old corduroy jacket of Sefton's. He thought, how calm she is, I mean how calm she seems.

‘So you won't come to the ballet? You ought to come out more.'

‘Oh, I will, I will.'

‘I can hear Anax walking about on the floor above, his claws are clicking on the boards.'

‘Moy will fetch him down soon.'

‘There's something organic about this house. Sefton cooking, Aleph playing the piano, you sewing, Anax walking, and Moy – well, being Moy, communing with a thing perhaps.'

‘She thinks everything in the world is alive.'

‘She gives it life.'

‘Wouldn't you like something to eat?'

‘No, I had some sandwiches when I left the theatre.'

‘You're still working in that little place, someone was ill?'

‘Yes. I don't like working on someone else's stuff, but it's urgent. I'll finish soon. Damn, I meant to ring Harvey, I missed him at – well – '

‘Where?'

‘Oh, at his flat. I thought he might be there, but he had just left, Joan seemed to be all right, Tessa was with her.'

‘Oh. I've told Harvey he can come to lunch or supper here anytime but he doesn't come.'

‘He thinks you're pitying him. It's not like it used to be. You must name a date.'

‘He said he was working.'

‘I bet he wasn't. I can't work properly. Oh God, I wish Lucas would turn up, I
can't stand this waiting. I begin to feel that I ought to go out and look
for him, I just want to do something, not just wait.'

‘I know. But you've already used up every possible – '

‘Yes, but I ought to
go
to all these places, I ought to go to America – or else – just set off into the blue, just
search
with – with faith – '

‘Wandering penniless and at random?'

‘How can I stay here and get on with normal comfortable life?'

‘You want to suffer for him.'

‘I feel he may be in some terrible state of mind. He was rather low even before that business.'

‘You mean because he didn't get the Chair at Cambridge?'

‘He's terribly sensitive and vulnerable.'

‘He's lucky to have a brother who cares for him so much. Brothers don't always love each other. But you've always been close.'

‘I feel I'm at the end of something – everything is going to be different – and terrible.'

‘That doesn't sound like you, you ride every wave.'

‘There is one that will drown me. You know, the theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak. You dedicate yourself passionately to something, to a project, to people, to a family, you think of nothing else for weeks and months, then suddenly it's over, it's perpetual destruction, perpetual divorce, perpetual adieu. It's like
éternel retour
, it's a koan. It's like falling in love and being smashed over and over again.'

‘You do, then, fall in love.'

‘Only with fictions, I love players, but actors are so ephemeral. And then there's waiting for the perfect part, and being offered it the day after you've committed yourself to something utterly rotten. The remorse, and the envy and the jealousy. An old actor told me if I wanted to stay in the trade I had better kill off envy and jealousy at the start. You know, sometimes, I feel I'd like to be back in the circus.'

‘You said the life was hell.'

‘I like circus people. They're quite unlike theatre people. They're crazy, they're gypsies, they don't make mean calculations. It's as if they expected death all the time, even if they weren't on the high wire.'

‘But aren't such people under a terrible strain, without any privacy, and all that compulsory homeless travelling – ?

‘And I could get out of London, London is terrible, full of dangers and punishments. Compulsory travelling, perhaps that's what I need, like being a prisoner and walking to Siberia. One would become depersonalised and ego-less. Sorry, I'm talking nonsense. I just feel I'm losing my nerve, I ought to be imprisoned. I've been on a high wire long enough.'

‘You mean looked after. You feel Lucas's absence.'

‘Oh damn it all. What are the girls singing now?'

‘ “Santa Lucia”.'

‘It sounds so sad.'

‘I forgot to say, they want you to teach them “Porta Romana”.'

‘I'll teach them “Porta Romana”. I'll teach them anything – how's Aleph, is she – '

‘Is she what?'

‘Oh happy, all right, upset about Harvey, anxious about her studies, going to stay with the Adwardens – '

‘All that. You'll see her before you go, you'll see them all. Sefton will stand on her head in your honour.'

‘And Moy – '

‘I wanted to talk to you about Moy – '

‘I don't lead her on!'

‘I know, my dear – it's just that, as she's growing older, she simply mustn't settle down to imagining that she's in love with you! I don't want it to become a sort of problem, a situation. People could notice and make jokes – I think they do already.'

‘Am I then to be distant, detached, unkind? I can't do it.'

‘Not unkind – just rational.'

‘Rational! Louise, you know I can't be rational! All right, all right, I'll try. I'll watch my step!'

‘Won't you eat something? You starve yourself.'

‘No, no, I must go. I've got to read a script. We'll just look in on the girls.'

‘You go alone, they like that.'

 

 

 

The trouble with Clement was that he had been in love with Louise. He had fallen in love when he had first set eyes on her, when Teddy Anderson had introduced her as his
fiancée.
Clement's instant thought had been
it's too late
, oh
if only
I had met her first, before she met Teddy, it might have happened, it could have happened, she would have loved me, we are made for each other, and now she's
lost forever
! Had he succeeded in concealing his feelings? Had he
imagined
that he saw in her eyes some special understanding, some kinship? Of course he did not dare to think that she too had thought ‘if only – ' What he saw might have been her pity for him, her sympathy. Or perhaps just her kindness, the way in which, ever after as he watched her, she instinctively made all things better, speaking no evil, disarming hostility, turning ill away, making peace: her gentleness, which made her seem, sometimes, to some people, weak, insipid, dull. ‘She's not exactly a strong drink!' someone said. So secretly did she work in her courtesy.

They had met in an empty theatre. Clement had come early for a rehearsal and was standing contemplating the stage, observing what was wrong with the way it had been (not by him) arranged. He was expecting Teddy. Teddy arrived with a girl. Clement held her hand for a moment; knowing that after that moment the darkness would begin. Of course he had survived. He had loved the ladies of the theatre, and other ladies too, including more than one very much his senior. As for Louise, of course he never told his love, to her or to anyone. His evident merry life with various charmers discouraged any suspicion of a secret attachment. Louise was a jewel locked away; and after the first ‘if only' period had passed and Clement had got used to ‘Mrs Anderson', he felt that his love for her had not faded, but had suffered a sea change into something special and unique, causing a special and unique and much valued, pain. Later still he just settled down to thinking that, though he would always love her, he was not exactly in love any more. Then Teddy died. Teddy's unexpected death caused a great deal of grief and disarray in the small group which had in one way or other been his ‘family'. He had also, it became evident, been a highly regarded friend of numerous colleagues and clients who thronged his funeral. Bellamy was deeply affected, so were Lucas and Clement. Clement mourned sincerely, but could not help having other thoughts as well. His instinct was to run straight to Louise and offer her every sort of help and support, in the course of which he would, in some natural manner, declare the love of which he now felt sure she must be well aware. The children loved him. He was a favourite visitor at the house. But somehow just this facility made him hesitate, as if his sudden presence or closeness might be unfair, unfair to
her
in her desperate and vulnerable state. He hesitated. Meanwhile Bellamy had moved in with spiritual, and Lucas with financial, first aid. Here was another ‘if only' – if only he had acted quickly, spontaneously, throwing ‘tact' and ‘good form' to the winds. Just
then
she had needed him, and he had failed. This bitter reflection positively, for a time, hindered his strange friendship with Louise, he avoided her almost to the point of boorishness, almost deliberately seeming to have lost his interest and his affection. The pain of his ‘might have been' led him instinctively to devalue his loss, make it not a loss but something inconceivable and nil. This stage passed however, and he returned to her, was welcomed, as he really knew he would be, and found himself playing a role in her life which was somehow special, unlike that played by Bellamy, or by Jeremy Adwarden who was generally known to have an old
tendresse
for Louise. Yet, as more time passed, her kindly acceptance of him and the innocent harmless ease of their friendship began to sadden him. He was becoming used to ‘things as they are' – was he still in love? Surely
this
wasn't being in love? He had occasional affairs with the ‘charmers', now less often, recently not at all. He could not find anyone he wanted to marry. It seemed he simply did not want to marry. Gradually, Clement began to feel that his strange sadness with which he had lived so long was very faintly colouring his old friendship with Louise, as if there were now a tension between them, an awkwardness, a bond which vibrated with a significant melancholy. Clement connected this with the growing up of the girls, and of Harvey, whom Louise loved so much and regarded as her son. Of course Clement and Louise had, as the years went by, talked endlessly about the children. They still talked, but some topics were avoided. The problems were too evident, they sat together eyeing them in silence. The stage now belonged to the young people, there would be happenings. Yet nothing happened; and Clement felt as if a magic spell had paralysed them all – and in that paralysis he felt at times the realisation, between him and Louise, that really they were brother and sister.

Nothing happened; yet there were disturbing signs and portents. Some while ago Joan upset him with a joke about his being ‘too young for Louise and too old for Aleph'. Clement had become aware that he found Aleph attractive. Well, everybody found Aleph attractive. Louise, later, had said, in random conversation with Clement, that she thought Aleph needed an older man, but, and, she was afraid of her marrying someone unsuitable. Reflecting on this afterwards the crazy idea occurred to Clement that Louise, who was always insisting how young Clement was, wanted him to marry Aleph! But this was totally insane, the notion made him sick and giddy! Then he found himself pondering upon Louise's question, which he had scarcely noticed at the time: ‘You do, then, fall in love?' Was not that ‘then' suggestive? But now he was dreaming, he was wildly imagining things. Nothing like
that
could be thought of seriously. Perhaps, in connection with him, nothing could be thought of seriously; he had played the ape and the jester too long, he was supposed and expected to play the fool, he was essentially a self-dramatising entertainer, who turns over twice in the air and fears that next time he will break his neck. He had spent too long up on the high wire. Now something else was increasingly troubling Clement: his relation with Joan. Of course, although he had sometimes flirted with her, he had
no
relation with Joan. The episode in the rue Vercingetorix was a matter of one drunken evening. But who would believe that if Joan asserted otherwise? He could not say that nothing had happened. A little shame-facedly he had asked Joan not to talk, and so far as he knew she had not talked. Hints that she might were uttered jokingly. Now, as he increasingly reflected, the note had become more sinister: she had a secret which gave her power over him. This surely was blackmail. Or was it just the same old nonsense, the nonsense within which he lived his clownish life? Anyway, did it really matter? Except that he would rather Louise didn't know. He had once overheard Joan, talking to Louise, mention him with a droll air of ownership. Clement dreaded the idea of having to deal with an inflated rumour. There was a potential mess, a blot upon the unblemished, almost holy, nature of his friendship with Louise. Of course it was, was it not, really something trivial, minor. Louise had surely never worried about Clement's affairs with the ladies of the theatre, people whom Louise did not know. Joan was too near home. Suppose Joan said he had proposed to her? In fact Clement had always been fond of Joan, he got
on
with Joan, when younger they had even had some vague feeling of being ‘scallywags' together. He
must
now distance himself from her. There was such a sad meanness about it all. Anyway, as he was now reflecting, he had even darker troubles in his mind, problems quite unconnected with Joan and Louise, which would occupy him entirely as he walked home.