Nuns and Soldiers (41 page)

‘News, news, Gertrude has taken a lover!’ ‘No! Who is he?’ ‘Tim Reede!’ ‘You mean the little painter chap? You’re joking!’ Did they know? If she stopped it now it would never be more than a vague rumour which would fade away and be forgotten. No one would be certain; after all it was so very improbable. But what was she now thinking? There was so much in the balance against poor Tim. There was Guy and Anne and the Count. And now some hideous mean pride which she hated but which was profoundly a part of her as well. It had seemed so sensible to keep it dark, not to admit so soon to another attachment. Now it was beginning to seem impossibly hard to admit it at all. Yet the idea of parting from Tim, really parting, was unthinkable. Gertrude’s mind dodged this way and that like a poor hunted hare. There seemed only one issue, muddled and temporary, but which left, for the time, all the essentials unharmed. She must ask Tim for a moratorium, an interval, a time for reflection, or rather a sort of non-time when everything stood still.

Gertrude had thought this yet had not thought it. She had run to Tim’s arms away from thought. She had wanted Tim to
prove
his inevitability. The crucial, the revealing conversation started really by accident. They had finished one of their long festival dinners. How easy they found it to talk, they got on so well together, they talked about anything! This was one of the ever-fresh miracles of their love which Gertrude had noticed with surprise. (Anne had said, ‘He’ll bore you.’ She could not have been more wrong.) Gertrude felt, in her detached separated way which made her like a spy able to divide her mind, calm and loving. They were sitting in the dining-room, in the lamplight, at the strewn table, drinking wine. Gertrude had suddenly said, ‘We can’t go on like this,’ and Tim had said, ‘My God, I know!’ and then they had set off on this disastrous argument. They looked at each other in horror and misery but could not stop saying the things which would divide them forever.

‘Gertrude, this is the truth. You just want it to end. You want it to end before anyone finds out. You want it never to have been at all. You want me to vanish. All right, I’ll vanish.’

‘I
don’t
want that -’

‘Yes, you do, you want me to be kind and do it myself so that you won’t have to feel afterwards that you did it. You’re right, our love will simply be spoilt if we go on. Better to stop now while it’s still pure. We shall end up hating each other, or rather you’ll hate me, I’ll just be a bloody millstone. Of course it was too good to be true. It’s been wonderful and I’m grateful and I’m not angry or hostile, but oh God I’m so unhappy -’

‘Tim, I’m so unhappy too, I’m wretched and frightened, yet half an hour ago I was happy with you. This is madness. Oh Tim, why can’t we make happiness for each other?’

‘Because you don’t love me enough, my darling. It’s no surprise, no accident, that we’re here.’

‘Where’s here?’

‘The parting of the ways.’

‘No, no, no. Tim, dear, we
can’t
part. Let’s stop talking, let’s go to bed. We’ve said too much.’

‘OK. You go. I’ll follow. I want to finish the wine.’

Tim rose almost formally as Gertrude got up. She came and leaned against him, clinging to his white flapping shirt. His skin was moist.

‘Go to bed, darling.’

‘All right, Tim. Come soon.’

Gertrude had fallen asleep. She had kicked her shoes off and lain down on the bed. Now she woke, listened. The light in the bedroom had been turned off. She felt sure the flat was empty. She leapt up and ran from room to room calling his name. There was no one there. Then she noticed that his rucksack and his old suitcase which had been in the hall were gone.

Gertrude went into the drawing-room and turned on all the lights. There was a letter on the table.

Gertrude unbuttoned her dress and tore at it. She grasped her hair and pulled. Her mouth opened in a grin of pain and rage, tears like thunder-drops rained from her eyes. She sat down and remained absolutely still for nearly half an hour.

Then she got up and poured herself some whisky. She wanted Tim so much that her body seemed to be falling apart, moving away into separate pieces. She could scarcely prevent herself from scuttling about like a mad animal. She had never really said to herself, ‘It’s just physical, it’s lust, shock-lust, a flight from grief,’ and she did not say it now. But she felt her physical longing for Tim as something detached and strange, as a sort of emanation, a second body, her longing for his thin red-haired hands and his smooth sweet skin and his kisses that solved all problems and answered all questions.

Gertrude drank the whisky and called upon her reason, with quiet deliberation as one might call a servant. Tim had said ‘it’s no accident’. It was no accident that just that conversation had started, though just when it came seemed random, a matter of chance. It had to come. They had been on the brink of that conversation for days, almost ever since Tim moved to Ebury Street. She felt that they had both rehearsed it, had both had their statements ready. ‘It’s true,’ she said aloud. ‘I can’t marry him.’ She had tried hard to bind Tim into her life, but he was alien tissue and the saving blood would not flow from her being into his. In the end she rejected him. She did not try to think why. There were many many reasons. She ought to have fallen in love with someone else, but she had fallen in love with Tim by mistake. About Tim’s state of mind she endeavoured not to think, and indeed it was obscure to her.

She looked at her watch and was amazed to find that she was wondering if it was too late to ring the Count. Of course it was. It was nearly two o’clock. She got up and pulled back the curtains and looked out into empty silent Ebury Street. There was nothing to conceal now. And just in that gesture of pulling back the curtains she felt relief. The lying, the concealment had poisoned them. Their love had been something amazing and wonderful, but not strong, not sane. I suppose it’s my fault, thought Gertrude, but the idea of fault doesn’t really apply. I must simply recover, people do recover. I’ll see my friends, I’ll gather them about me, that’s how I’ll live from now on forever, with my friends. I’ll bring Anne back here, and tomorrow I’ll see the Count, I’ll have lunch with him and see his happy eyes. That’s the real world. And I’ll have a little party and invite Manfred and Gerald and Victor and Ed and Moses and Janet and Stanley and Mrs Mount. And I’ll ask Sylvia Wicks round for a drink separately because someone said she was unhappy. And I’ll take Rosalind Openshaw on a jaunt somewhere, to Athens or Rome, and Anne will come too. We’ll have fun, and I’ll be kind to people and find out how they are. And everything will be good and simple and open and innocent again. Tim has been kind to me. He has been wise and brave. It is better to finish like this.

And no one will know, she thought. It will be all sealed away. Even if there was a rumour, no one will believe it if I go about as usual. This will preserve it, in a way, our love. It will stay perfect, safe in the past. It won’t have been spoilt by quarrels and hate and by the stupid vulgarity of people who would despise it. No one could have understood it ever except Tim and me. Now it’s taken away and safe. It’s better so.

There was a pale dawn light over Ebury Street, descending from above over the dim street lamps like a pearly mist. Soon it would be June and midsummer. The houses were still, as if held in a grip of judgement.

Gertrude turned away to go to bed. The courage of the whisky had gone from her. Her head was aching. She undressed and took some aspirins. As she sat down on the bed the great thunder-tears began to roll again. I’m alone, she thought. I hoped I wouldn’t be, but I am. I’ve lost him, my love, my playboy. And o’er his bones when they are bare the wind shall blow forever more.

‘So yer back,’ said Daisy. ‘I thought you’d come slinking back.’

‘Did you?’ said Tim. ‘I didn’t. Give me some of that wine, for Christ’s sake.’

‘There ain’t much. I hope you’ve got money, I haven’t.’

‘Plenty.’

‘So at least you’ve come back with money in your pocket.’

Tim had wondered whether he should send the money back to Gertrude. He decided not to.

Tim sat down on one of the swaying rickety chairs. Sun shone into the stuffy dusty room. Daisy, sitting on the bed, propped with pillows and with her knees up, was dressed to kill today. She had been putting the finishing touches to her make-up when Tim arrived unannounced. Daisy was wearing a black and white striped silky skirt pulled into a black shiny belt, and a black and white sprigged blouse with a floppy collar tied by a black and orange scarf. Her long legs were in black tights, her shoes were black patent leather with big metal buckles and extremely high thin heels. She had a blue and white clown face on.

‘How’s the novel?’

‘Fine. It just raced ahead while you were absent without leave.’

‘Good.’

‘So you ratted on Gertrude?’

‘We ratted mutually. It was a short excursion into total insanity. ’

‘I said so. Did I not say so?’

‘You did. Who are you dolled up for?’

‘You.’

‘You didn’t know I was coming.’

‘I expected you daily.’

‘How touching.’

‘Of course it wasn’t for you. I was just going down the old Prince for lunch.’

‘Have you found someone else in my absence?’

‘No. But it wasn’t for want of trying. I haven’t forgiven you, you know.’

‘But you will.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter, it’s all states of mind. I missed you! That’s a state of mind too. Did you miss me?’

‘I think so,’ said Tim.

‘I think so! That’s a fine Tim Reedeish remark! So it’s over?’

‘Yes.’

‘It had better be. What was it like? I’m expecting an amusing blow by blow account.’

‘I can’t, Daisy. Let’s forget it. Forgive and forget. It’s gone, it’s undone, like a knot is undone, and the string is straight again.’

‘Very picturesque. I’ve often thought that our life together was like a piece of string, a dirty old piece of string all unravelling at the ends.’

‘You didn’t try to get in touch with me?’ said Tim. He had returned to the studio, but there was no letter. After a day and a night alone at the studio he had run to Daisy. He feared Gertrude’s arrival and he could not stand the solitude. And he suddenly absolutely needed to talk to Daisy.

‘Why the hell should I, fuck you? You cleared off saying you were going to get married. Did you expect me to run after you? Good bloody riddance, thought I.’

‘But you’re glad I’m back?’

‘I suppose so. I’ve been in and out of an alcoholic haze, actually. I’m used to you, dear boy. I can talk to you. I think you’re a mean selfish lying bastard, like most men. I just hate the others more.’

‘Daisy -’

‘Will you get us some more wine, or shall we go to the Prince? Jimmy Roland’s back, by the way.’

‘Oh good -’

‘He says America’s empty, like being inside a clean white cardboard box.’

‘Daisy, do you mind if I stay here just for the moment?’

‘You mean live here, share my bed?’

‘Yes, just not for long -’

‘OK. “And there’s always that,” as you so romantically say when you want to make love. No wonder all the girls are after you. What’s up at the studio?’

‘They’re turning me out.’ This was untrue, but Tim did not want to continue the pain of wondering if Gertrude would come.

‘Really! I wonder if that’s true. Not that it matters much. I have no more curiosity about your truthfulness. You can’t bring your bloody paintings here.’

‘The garage man will store them. Thanks, darling.’

‘You’d better bustle round quick and find a flat. You know how we two get if we’re shut up together like rats. We’d be OK in a palace. Money would do a lot for our characters.’

‘I’ll bustle. Shall I get some wine or shall we go to the Prince of Denmark?’

‘Oh get some wine, and some grub too while you’re about it. I don’t want to go to the Prince, it’s too far at lunch time. Jimmy Roland will be there laughing at his own jokes and I can’t stand that asinine bray, and poor Piglet squeaking. Don’t go yet. Come and sit beside me and make up to me in a humble penitent manner.’

Tim sat beside her and looked into her large dark woody-brown eyes outlined in blue between their spiky black lashes. He touched the little brown mole beside her nose. ‘Old pal.’