Complete Poems and Plays (77 page)

C
OLBY
.
                                         And lock the gate behind me?

Are you sure that you haven’t your own secret garden

Somewhere, if you could find it?

L
UCASTA
.
                                          If I could find it!

No, my only garden is … a dirty public square

In a shabby part of London — like the one where I lived

For a time, with my mother. I’ve no garden.

I hardly feel that I’m even a person:

Nothing but a bit of living matter

Floating on the surface of the Regent’s Canal.

Floating, that’s it.

C
OLBY
.
                       You’re very much a person.

I’m sure that there is a garden somewhere for you —

For anyone who wants one as much as you do.

L
UCASTA
.
And
your
garden is a garden

Where you hear a music that no one else could hear,

And the flowers have a scent that no one else could smell.

C
OLBY
.
You may be right, up to a point.

And yet, you know, it’s not quite real to me —

Although it’s as real to me as … this world.

But that’s just the trouble. They seem so unrelated.

I turn the key, and walk through the gate,

And there I am … alone, in my ‘garden’.

Alone, that’s the thing. That’s why it’s not real.

You know, I think that Eggerson’s garden

Is more real than mine.

L
UCASTA
.
                           Eggerson’s garden?

What makes you think of Eggerson — of all people?

C
OLBY
.
Well, he retires to his garden — literally,

And also in the same sense that I retire to mine.

But he doesn’t feel alone there. And when he comes out

He has marrows, or beetroot, or peas … for Mrs. Eggerson.

L
UCASTA
.
Are you laughing at me?

C
OLBY
.
                                               I’m being very serious.

What I mean is, my garden’s no less unreal to me

Than the world outside it. If you have two lives

Which have nothing whatever to do with each other —

Well, they’re both unreal. But for Eggerson

His garden is a part of one single world.

L
UCASTA
.
But what do you want?

C
OLBY
.
                                            Not to be alone there.

If I were religious, God would walk in my garden

And that would make the world outside it real

And acceptable, I think.

L
UCASTA
.
                           You sound awfully religious.

Is there no other way of making it real to you?

C
OLBY
.
It’s simply the fact of being alone there

That makes it unreal.

L
UCASTA
.
                       Can no one else enter?

C
OLBY
.
It can’t be done by issuing invitations:

They would just have to come. And I should not see them coming.

I should not hear the opening of the gate.

They would simply … be there suddenly,

Unexpectedly. Walking down an alley

I should become aware of someone walking with me.

That’s the only way I can think of putting it.

L
UCASTA.
How afraid one is of … being hurt!

C
OLBY
.
It’s not the hurting that one would mind

But the sense of desolation afterwards.

L
UCASTA
.
I know what you mean. Then the flowers would fade

And the music would stop. And the walls would be broken.

And you would find yourself in a devastated area —

A bomb-site … willow-herb … a dirty public square.

But I can’t imagine that happening to you.

You seem so secure, to me. Not only in your music —

That’s just its expression. You don’t seem to me

To need anybody.

C
OLBY
.
                      That’s quite untrue.

L
UCASTA
.
But you’ve something else, that I haven’t got:

Something of which the music is a … symbol.

I really would like to understand music,

Not in order to be able to talk about it,

But … partly, to enjoy it … and because of what it stands for.

You know, I’m a little jealous of your music!

When I see it as a means of contact with a world

More real than any
I’ve
ever lived in.

And I’d like to understand
you.

C
OLBY.
                                           I believe you do already,

Better than … other people. And I want to understand
you.

Does one ever come to understand anyone?

L
UCASTA
.
I think you’re being very discouraging:

Are you doing it deliberately?

C
OLBY
.
                                         That’s not what I meant.

I meant, there’s no end to understanding a person.

All one can do is to understand them better,

To keep up with them; so that as the other changes

You can understand the change as soon as it happens,

Though you couldn’t have predicted it.

L
UCASTA
.
                                                    I think I’m changing.

I’ve changed quite a lot in the last two hours.

C
OLBY
.
And I think I’m changing too. But perhaps what we call change …

L
UCASTA
.
Is understanding better what one really is.

And the reason why that comes about, perhaps …

C
OLBY
.
Is, beginning to understand another person.

L
UCASTA
.
Oh Colby, now that we begin to understand,

I’d like you to know a little more about me.

You must have wondered.

C
OLBY
.
                                   Must have wondered?

No, I haven’t wondered. It’s all a strange world

To me, you know, in which I find myself.

But if you mean, wondered about your … background:

No. I’ve been curious to know what you
are,

But not who you are, in the ordinary sense.

Is that what you mean? I’ve just accepted you.

L
UCASTA
.
Oh, that’s so wonderful, to be accepted!

No one has ever ‘just accepted’ me before.

Of course the facts don’t matter, in a sense.

But now we’ve got to this point — you might as well know them.

C
OLBY
.
I’d gladly tell you everything about myself;

But you know most of what there is to say

Already, either from what I’ve told you

Or from what I’ve told B.; or from Sir Claude.

L
UCASTA
.
Claude hasn’t told me anything about you;

He doesn’t tell me much. And as for B. —

I’d much rather hear it from yourself.

C
OLBY.
There’s only one thing I can’t tell you.

At least, not yet. I’m not allowed to tell.

And that’s about my parents.

L
UCASTA
.
                                    Oh, I see.

Well, I can’t believe that matters.

But I can tell you all about
my
parents:

At least, I’m going to.

C
OLBY
.
                            Does that matter, either?

L
UCASTA
.
In one way, it matters. A little while ago

You said, very cleverly, that when we first met

You saw I was trying to give a false impression.

I want to tell you now, why I tried to do that.

And it’s always succeeded with people before:

I got into the habit of giving that impression.

That’s where B. has been such a help to me —

He fosters the impression. He half believes in it.

But he knows all about me, and he knows

That what some men have thought about me wasn’t true.

C
OLBY
.
What wasn’t true?

L
UCASTA
.
                             That I was Claude’s mistress —

Or had been his mistress, palmed off on B.

C
OLBY
.
I never thought of such a thing!

L
UCASTA
.
                                                   You never thought of such a thing!

There are not many men who wouldn’t have thought it.

I don’t know about B. He’s very generous.

I don’t think he’d have minded. But he’s very clever too;

And he guessed the truth from the very first moment.

C
OLBY
.
But what is there to know?

L
UCASTA
.
                                           You’ll laugh when I tell you:

I’m only Claude’s daughter.

C
OLBY
.
                                      His daughter!

L
UCASTA
.
His daughter. Oh, it’s a sordid story.

I hated my mother. I never could see

How Claude had ever liked her. Oh, that childhood —

Always living in seedy lodgings

And being turned out when the neighbours complained.

Oh of course Claude gave her money, a regular allowance;

But it wouldn’t have mattered how much he’d given her:

It was always spent before the end of the quarter

On gin and betting, I should guess.

And I knew how she supplemented her income