The Green Knight (53 page)

‘You are a coward. Why didn't you just go to Italy, never mind your foot. You just wanted an excuse. Why don't you take a job?'

‘Oh shut up,
maman,
I haven't any skills. Look I must go – '

‘You could be a waiter, anyone can be a waiter.'

‘Besides, I've got to
read,
I've got to
study
– '

‘I don't believe it. Who is supporting you, I presume someone is.'

‘I don't know. Who is supporting you, if it comes to that?'

‘I have been selling myself to pay for you.'

‘Don't play that dreary old card. I don't understand why you don't go back to Paris, if you don't want to you can sell your Paris flat, didn't you tell me you were selling it?'

‘I can't, I don't own it, I only pretended to, someone else owns it! Oh God, I need a man!'

Harvey had by now set aside his notion that he had seen a woman at Lucas's house and that that woman was his mother. He had been so overwhelmed by the shock of the loss of his stick and its even more terrible return that this anguish had somehow swept away his earlier speculations. He had even begun to conjecture that the ‘woman' whom he had ‘seen' might have been a boy, or else an illusion created by the dim light and the rain. He passionately
did not want to think
about Lucas.

‘Oh please,
chère maman,
let us not have this
senseless
argument again! I must go to see Aleph!'

‘Couldn't you occupy her room while she's away?'

‘Perhaps you could!'

‘Well, we both know we can't. Who'd want us in that house? It would just embarrass them. There remains Clement, he loves me, I shall ring him up.'

‘Oh, it's all so
contemptible
!'

‘I know. Why are we both so stupid? We are both cowards. I shall have to resort to Humphrey Hook after all.'

‘The final solution.
Maman
, do not frighten me.'

‘At least I'd have peace then and no more worries!'

‘Oh stop it!' He had searched his mother's luggage for drugs or sleeping-pills but found none. However, he knew that she had left several cases with Louise at Clifton, and probably others with Cora.

Harvey was sitting on the end of the bed. His mother, barefoot, clothed now in smart narrow black trousers and a loose dark green shirt, was leaning back against the pillows, raising her head awkwardly. Her mass of hair was tangled, her face devoid of make-up looked pale and hungry.

He thought, how beautiful she is, she is
profoundly
beautiful, she is a gipsy. Staring at Harvey she touched her hair as if timidly with her frail hand. She said, ‘It's cold.'

Harvey leaned forward and kissed her cold feet, enclosing them in his warm hands. Her eyes closed, then sparkled, then slowly filled with tears.

‘Oh darling
maman
, I love you so much! I
must
go now.'

Harvey relied on finding a taxi. He usually had luck with taxis. When he appeared, a taxi appeared. This time, however, he was not lucky. He walked, turning his head this way and that, increasingly upset as he looked at his watch and saw how late it was. He walked slowly, leaning on his stick, the clinical one, not the smart one tainted by Lucas. Thoughts about his mother soon vanished, he was possessed by anguish about Aleph. How had he idiotically spent so much time arguing with his mother? Distant live taxis were constantly seized by others. He stood at crossroads impotently waving his stick. Nearly half an hour had passed. Harvey was almost in tears. At last the longed-for cab obeyed his signal. He climbed in and leaned back closing his eyes. He thought, Aleph wanted to see me alone. Still, surely I won't be too late. Oh why is she going away just when I want so much to be with her! She is the answer to the riddle of my life.

He reached Clifton and paid the taxi. There was a long sleek black car outside. Rosemary Adwarden's car. As he hurried toward the door of the house it burst open and, with a medley of voices, the Cliftonians poured out onto the pavement. Rosemary was opening the boot of the car and putting in Aleph's suitcase. Rosemary was as tall as Aleph, a lithe blonde destined by her barrister father for the legal profession. She already had a place at Edinburgh University. Harvey, who liked her, had not seen her for some time. She was the first to notice him. ‘Why, Harvey, you poor lame duck, I'm so sorry! Get better soon, won't you!' Sefton, standing by, said censoriously, ‘You're late!' Aleph, handsome in her tweed travelling clothes, was being kissed by the others. She threw her overcoat and mackintosh into the back of the car. She turned to Harvey. He wanted a message but there could be none. She kissed his cheek, clasping one of his hands and squeezing it. ‘Goodbye, Harvey, thank you for coming, goodbye!' She stepped into the car. The car sped off, Aleph's hand fluttering at the open window. Harvey did not wave. He felt a stone on his heart, the terrible weight of remorse. She had wanted to talk to him alone, and he had not been there. Would he ever be able to win back what he had in this minute lost? He thought, she will never forgive me, she will lose her love for me forever.

Sefton had moved back into the house. Moy had run in after her and released Anax who had been shut in the kitchen. Louise, still on the pavement, said to Harvey, ‘Come in, my dear, and have a cup of tea.'

Harvey followed her in. Moy, followed by Anax, was disappearing up the stairs. Sefton had entered her own room and shut the door. Louise went into the kitchen. Harvey said, ‘I want to talk to Anax. I'll be back in a minute.' He followed the bounding dog up the stairs and on up to the top landing. Moy, turning and seeing him, looked startled. She pushed open the door of her room. He sat down on the top step and tried to attract Anax's attention while Moy watched. The dog calmed down and, called by his name, came to Harvey who patted him, uttering endearments, and then stroking his long back from which the thick soft fur fell down so neatly, stroking him over his sleek head and over his long grey muzzle and his black whiskers, gently touching his black curling lips and his white teeth and his moist black nose. Anax gazed at him with his blue eyes which were so distant and so strange and so sad. Harvey, looking up at Moy, thought suddenly, Anax loves Bellamy, Moy loves Clement, I love Aleph. And here we all are shipwrecked. Oh what a fool I am! ‘When will she be back?' he said to Moy. Moy made a vague helpless gesture. Evidently she didn't know.

Harvey rose and made his way cautiously down the stairs. The kitchen door was open and Louise was sitting at the table. Harvey thought, this house which I know so well and have known so long ought to be my home. Only it is not. My mother is right. Less and less will I be welcome here.

‘Harvey, sit down, have some tea. Why don't I see you more often? I wish you would regard this place as your home like you used to do. Have some of this lemon sponge cake, I made it for Aleph only she wouldn't have any. How is your mother? She is neglecting us too.'

‘Oh she's all right. You know Emil is back? Clive has left him.'

‘Yes, Emil rang me up, he wanted all the news. He told me about Clive. So sad, isn't it, after so many years.'

‘Yes. He wants to be alone now.'

‘I quite understand. So you are sharing your flat with Joan? Isn't it much too small?'

‘Yes, but I think she's going to move in with Clement.'

‘To move in with Clement?'

Harvey had no sooner said this at random than he felt another pang of sharp and painful remorse. If he had been a grain more sensitive he should have realised that Louise was on the point of offering him Aleph's room. If only he could have lived in Aleph's house, slept in Aleph's bed, the magic power which he so desperately longed for would have been granted to him.

 

 

 

 

Yes, ‘everyone' had been invited to Peter's party: the Cliftonians of course, Lucas, Clement, Bellamy, Harvey, Joan, Tessa, Emil, the Adwardens (but only Jeremy and Connie could come, Rosemary was away touring with Aleph and the boys had returned to their boarding school), the landlord of The Castle, and Cora Brock who had, as Joan put it, ‘Got into the act somehow as usual.' Anax had also been invited, but of course with Bellamy there his presence was impossible.

The invitation said simply
Peter Mir at home 6 p.m. onward,
but Peter had assured Bellamy who told Clement who told Louise that besides, of course drinks, there would be ‘things to eat'. ‘I suppose we shall have to eat standing up, which I
abominate,'
said Clement. There were also reflections about who else, strangers, other friends of Peter's, might be present. This remained unclear, though Bellamy reported that Peter had said ‘family only', meaning what he called his ‘new family'. ‘He wants to thank us for being kind to him,' said Louise. Clement found this very funny. Joan suggested that he was gathering us together to blow us up. Altogether there was a good deal of not unpleasant mystification, including problems about what it would be correct to wear. How long a skirt? What sort of tie?

Clement, putting on a dark blue bow tie, was in a very unhappy state. Joan had telephoned him asking if she could come and stay in his flat, ‘Only for a few days,' she said, while Harvey was finding somewhere else to live. Clement had felt instantly that he
passionately
did not want Joan in his flat, if she were there he would go
mad.
Why? Because he was in love with her? Certainly not. He
hated
her, he
hated
himself. The horror of that scene with the knife had not left him. How could
that
, which he had witnessed, have really happened? Clement's
dread
now concerned not only the sight of the knife and the blood, but perhaps even more the
dance
, as it now seemed to him, performed by the two of them after the event. The word ‘event', now recurring to him again, made it all seem increasingly like the slow enactment of an awful pantomime. What he had lately seen might be called the ‘third event', or Act Three. They had laughed, they had capered round each other, they had positively delighted in each other, they had surely
touched
each other. It was like watching mad goats dancing. Thank heavens, he thought, as he fumbled with his tie, Lucas, who never came to parties, would not be present at this one! Or, in the new nightmarish scenario into which they were now entering,
would
Lucas come, would he decide to
manifest
himself? Perhaps this would turn out to be Act Four. I'm sure, thought Clement, that something terrible and
absolutely unexpected
will happen at this party. Time had unravelled itself with a baneful slowness since that unspeakable
first moment.
Then there had been the law case, Lucas's disappearance, the miserable interim, then the
tête-à-tête
with Lucas which had had some meaning which now escaped Clement, then the horror of Peter rising from the dead, then the ‘trial' and Peter's conquest of ‘the ladies', then the metamorphosis, then the climax, the knife, the blood, the dance. Then Joan proposing to move into his flat. ‘No!' he had cried on the telephone. ‘No, it's too much, no, you can't, no, no!' Afterwards he had felt sickening remorse, but could not ring her back since Harvey had no telephone and anyway what ‘apology' could be offered short of telling her yes, of course, she must come and stay at once! The idea, which also occurred to him, that he might take in Harvey instead, was of course equally out of the question. It would be an affront to Joan; and in any case Clement had developed curious feelings about Harvey, perhaps guilt, perhaps even jealousy. But all this was mad. Thank heaven Aleph would not be at this party. Oh poor Joan, had he now made her his enemy forever? And this morning, when his agent had telephoned him, mentioning an interesting part in a new play to be put on in Glasgow, but likely to reach the West End, and he had refused, his agent had said that unless he did
something
very soon he would be
totally forgotten.

 

Peter's house was indeed ‘lit up'. By now nearly all the guests had arrived, complaining of the cold (snow was forecast) and basking in the huge warm shell of space and light. Drinks were swiftly placed in every hand. Peter, in the drawing-room, had greeted those he knew and been introduced to those he did not. Bellamy had already explained to him that Lucas
never
answered invitations and
never
went to parties. Peter also introduced everyone to Mrs Callow the cook (old retainer), Patsie (Mrs Callow's niece) and Kenneth Rathbone, landlord of The Castle (evidently old friend and already known to Bellamy). The guests were encouraged to ‘stroll about everywhere', and some, not all, eagerly did so, penetrating, on all three floors, drawing-room, library, study, dining-room, kitchen, scullery, empty rooms, garden rooms, cloakrooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing-rooms, laundry rooms, boxrooms, and what Joan called ‘ambiguous boudoirs'. All the doors stood open. Clement's anxiety about ‘eating standing up' was soon dissipated by a glance into the dining-room set for a sit-down dinner, and his other anxiety about not getting enough to drink was removed by the sight of a large table at the far end of the hall where a crowd of drinks, including a recommended ‘special', were continually replenished for the strollers. Sausages and cheese biscuits and other dainties were also available in large bowls placed here and there. Clement kept on amazing himself by noticing how totally the house had changed since his last visit: another metamorphosis. Peter too, dressed in a very dark suit and a luxuriant green silk cravat, was smiling, moving about with happy ease among his guests, even wandering after them up the grand staircase. Clement also noticed, and mentioned to Bellamy, that their host, gracefully opening his hand and then raising it, was
touching
all the people with whom he conversed. ‘I suppose he is blessing us all,' Clement said. ‘He patted me. Now he can hardly take his hands off Emil.' Bellamy, beaming with pleasure, replied, ‘Accept his blessing. He will do us all good. Can you not feel a kind of warm enlivening force?' ‘Yes,' said Clement, ‘but I am afraid it is that “special”. I wonder what's in it.'