The young man continued to drift, forgetting and remembering. The sound of the grass reminded him it had always looked dead and white. He passed a bench in which one of his feet had caught, between the slats, when he was a little boy.
There were prawns too, in his parcel. He tore off the shells, and flipped these off his fingertips. The prawnflesh was beginning to turn, but he ate it.
The park was quieter than he could have believed. Since war ended, he often felt his life might last for ever, provided he didn’t die of starvation.
Hitting the waters of the bay, the prawnshells made a hollow sound. His mouth was hanging open, he realized; but he wasn’t crying: it was the sweat round his eyes from washing up the knives and forks, or some of the grease had rubbed off his fingers from the batter blanketing the cold fish.
He spat out a few fragments of shell. He ran his tongue round his mouth to get the most out of everything.
During the war his mother had written:
Dearest,
I still can’t believe you have done this to us. To run off and enlist when there wasn’t any
real
need! I had always imagined you to be more thoughtful, Hurtle. Your father and Rhoda felt the blow most keenly. For their own good I have refused to let them talk about it. As for myself, I am blessed with a resilience which helps me bear the disappointments in life.
We are otherwise in good health at home, your father seldom here, of course, for keeping an eye on the properties. Although I am
physically
exhausted, I expect I shall continue to hold the fort; too many others are dependent on me.
Rhoda has taken a snapshot with the Kodak we gave her for her birthday, and I am enclosing the picture—to show you, darling, I have not
entirely
gone to pieces!
Edith, whom you never liked, is knitting you a Balaclava, though that is supposed to be a surprise. Keep has become practically senile: she can no longer distinguish between a simple mid-afternoon frock and a
grande toilette.
What to do with her? I rack my brains. We can’t get rid of the old creature—I mean, of course,
pension her off.
She has been so long a member of the family she would only fret if separated from us, and not know how to occupy her time.
Ah, Time—if only I had as much again! I scarcely ever read, and fall asleep whenever I do. I run from one committee to the next. On Tuesday night there is a ball (costume) and proceeds to go to the Red Cross. Mrs Hollingrake is arranging a set. I don’t intend to tell you what I shall be going as, because I know you would tease me if I did.
I should mention that I have also started working for the Church. We have a new rector at St Michael’s. Mr Plumpton is a tower of strength—a Charterhouse man—such a beautiful delivery. He has lent me several books on which I must concentrate more deeply when I can find more time. I often wonder what they really
mean
by ‘meditation’, and if those who practise it, honestly do. Must ask Mr Plumpton for his opinion.
Darling, we must all
sustain one another
in these terrible days. Do you still pray, Hurtle? Of course I have no idea what you believe: I have no idea what anyone believes, and wouldn’t be so tasteless as to inquire. Everybody has his private needs, or possibly,
strength,
which is above need. I know that God will love me when I am old and uninteresting, and, I only pray, not hideous.
We are seeing something of a young man called Julian Boileau who is very sweet, very kind to poor little Rhoda. He would be in every way acceptable if it weren’t for our unfortunate ‘condition’. I think Rhoda understands, which makes the situation more tragic.
When I cannot sleep I try to explain to myself why you almost never write, or when you do, why you tell me next to nothing. Have I done anything to make you hate me, Hurtle? Or is simply that I am your mother who . . .
In Rhoda’s snapshot Maman was putting on her gloves, getting ready for church perhaps. She was wearing a smart little biplane hat, with a strap beneath the chin to safeguard against age and the ruder elements. Her smile hoped to be interpreted as proof of her indestructability.
Destroyed automatically rather than wilfully, Maman’s letter and Rhoda’s snap were trodden beyond retrieving into the prevailing mud. He would write to her of course, to them all, when he was less tired; that was the subtlest reason for his silence: he was weighed down by an excess of hardware, leather, webbing, drenched khaki, and the wristlet watch.
He tried to believe in himself, even in that part of him his family believed to exist. His failure to do so could explain why he had stopped writing to them.
At the height of the bombardment he felt he only believed in life. At its most flickery, with the smell of death around it, life alone was knowable. His ghostliness yearned after its great tawny sprawling body. He found himself praying for survival: that he might reveal through the forms his spirit understood this physical life which now appeared only by glimpses, under gunfire, or in visionary bursts, by grace of melting Very lights.
Once after the shit had been frightened out of him, he tried to visualize God, but saw instead a patient black-polled bull giving at the knees, blood gushing from spongy muzzle as he went down under the axe.
‘Your father’ had written:
... the difficulty of finding reliable hands now that we are involved in this infernal war. For this reason (and if I can make something on the deal) I have more or less decided to sell Mumbelong and Yalladookdook, to concentrate my strength at Sevenoaks. I have improved the pastures, the place is generously watered, and in a good season can become an earthly paradise. What possessed me, I wonder, never to have brought you here while you were still a boy? I could kick myself. You would have had grand sport with that rifle. The house is certainly a rambling folly, but could be brought up to date and made very comfortable and attractive if your mother would only contemplate it. (She says nothing will induce her to retire to my
Valhalla:
the draughts would kill her if boredom didn’t.) But you, my dear boy, will understand, I hope and believe.
I am writing to you in the office after breakfast: it is cold but dry, winter weather. I went down at sunrise and forked out their en-silage to a paddockful of sturdy young Angus bulls I am proud to think I bred. Life on the land continually offers a sense of creation, power—I hesitate to say: omnipotence. Standing on the dray under the winter sun this morning, I found myself longing for the time when you will inherit Sevenoaks and experience this for yourself.
The turn the war is taking has made everyone I meet doubtful of the outcome, but I refuse to let myself become depressed. I flatter myself I can see farther than the others. You will be back with us, my dear fellow. Those we wish to, do more often than not ‘miraculously’ survive . . .
He must write to his Father of the Bland Bulls, but was mostly too exhausted to attempt even the stilted expressions of love parents gratefully accept. He himself was grateful for the truth of some of what Our Father said. He remained miraculously unscathed, at least his physical envelope did, while all those around him were dying. He listened to their sighs of relief as they gave up the ghost. He, the unrelieved ghost, must in some way give thanks for the paternal love protecting him; when Our Father wrote:
. . . wondering whether to tell you something which happened last Wednesday morning, and have finally decided to. I had ridden down to inspect a stand of lucerne at the bend in the river below the house. I had just got down from my horse, when I fell in what I can only describe as a kind of ‘dizzy fit’. I don’t know how long I lay there, not very long I imagine, as the horse hadn’t strayed away from me. The poor beast was still trembling. I, too, was shaken by my experience, suffering from pins and needles, and wondering what else might be in store for me. (So much for ‘omnipotence’!) However, I am glad to report I have more or less returned to normal, although as a precaution, I am taking things very slowly. (I wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anyone else, least of all your mother. But you are my son.)
How, I wonder, can we reach that Merciful Power who alone can prevent the destruction of our world?
He must write to Our Father and tell him he loved and understood him, better even than before his fall from omnipotence. All that was needed now, in order to communicate, was a moment of total silence and light.
. . . you don’t write, Hurtle. This is a black winter even at a bonfire. I get them to bring in logs and stoke up these great stone fireplaces. Then I light my lamp and I’m well enough off: progress can’t improve on lamplight. But the few men left on the place are senile or imbecile, the cook a misshapen, toothless hag. Those we gather round us usually change shape: I don’t know why I should expect more. I don’t, for the most part, since my fall. Even when you are finally free, you won’t come, and I don’t blame you. Your life is your own, regardless of parents. This stone mausoleum is fairly cracking with frost tonight. Don’t think for a moment I want to accuse you of not having faith enough in your father . . .
In their dream Our Father put his black arms around him, which he shrugged off, while longing for the confirmation of grace. They stood looking at each other across the trampled sorghum, the smoke from which, rising into the frosty air, smelled of molasses. It was only this brief moment before he returned into his rain- and sweat-sodden clothes, the puttees cutting him off at the knees.
In spite of his not writing, it was Rhoda who wrote more than any of them:
... at last finished with governesses. The other girls I seldom see nowadays, though we have promised one another to meet. Some of them have become engaged, I hear. Mary Challands told me in confidence she is receiving instruction from a Roman Catholic priest. Although life at home is not so very different from what it was before, I am for the first time, you wouldn’t call it ‘free’, but other people have forgotten about me. Even Mummy doesn’t remember to tell me what I must do because she is always either too tired or too busy. If I were a man I would enlist in the Flying Corps. At great heights, in perfect isolation, I think I might at last become truly free, and would have no fear of crashing.
I don’t know why I have suddenly turned what Mummy calls ‘morbid’, when I set out to cheer you up.
On Friday we went on a small picnic with a friend you haven’t met. Julian Boileau drove us down the coast in his motor-car. It was what they describe as a ‘perfect afternoon’, but I kept wondering what you would have thought of it. I couldn’t help feeling you and Julian wouldn’t hit it off. He is so attentive to ladies they are all charmed. (He brought a bottle of champagne specially for Mummy, who is never at her best sitting on the ground.) He has rather pointed teeth and a fascinating moustache. There’s something wrong with his eyes, which is why he hasn’t joined up. Poor Julian is very kind, but treats me as though I were a little girl, whereas he is only twenty-eight himself. I think being on the short side gives me an unfair advantage over other people. When they look down at me, I am forced to look up through them. This is something I have never felt with you. I know we are not related by blood, but that isn’t necessary; blood relationship can often be a disadvantage. As I see it, we have been brought closer together by suffering from something incurable . . .
What?
he almost shouted against the gunfire. He must write to Rhoda in the first lull, or during his next leave, after giving longer thought to her preposterous remark. The most he could remember their sharing was an occasional laugh at somebody else’s expense. He would never have allowed Rhoda to intrude on the important, the true part of himself, because the truth might have warped or shrivelled up; so her odd assumption could only be accepted at the level of a joke.
... unnecessary for you to write, Hurtle. I know you think of me on and off, because a relationship like ours is at a deeper level—like a conscience.
Yesterday was my eighteenth birthday. I woke early, and was moved to tear up and burn all the diaries I have ever kept, all the easy half-truths. When I was younger I wanted badly to be some kind of artist, in imitation of my brother: I think I was hoping to offer people something more acceptable than myself. Now I realize I shall never be anything but that, and must try to make it a truthful work.
Father came down for my birthday. He has given me a choker of seed-pearls, very pretty, and an ermine muff, Mummy’s presents were a cage of Java sparrows—and a
diary.
Fortunately she can’t have known I had burnt all my diaries that morning; it was too early for her, and she no longer goes behind the scenes. Mummy’s present is bound in ivory, with a gold clasp and key. In any case, it’s only an ornament.
There wasn’t a party in the evening, thank God, because of the war, but a few people looked in: Vi and Boo, Julian Boileau, two young officers with wounds, a sailor. You wouldn’t know any of the men. Vi played for them, and there was dancing. It was all very jolly and intimate. Mummy revived. She danced, but couldn’t persuade Father. Mummy danced on the landings and along the passages. She invited the maids to come in because, in 1917, we’ve got to be democratic. Everybody but May came. They drank my health in port after the music had stopped. The sailor disappeared—to be sick, we discovered afterwards.
Although she is still my friend, Boo Hollingrake has grown away from me. I think she is hiding something—perhaps an engagement. Even if things had been different, I would probably have remained a spinster, just as you are what they call a ‘virgin soul’ . . .