Nuns and Soldiers (71 page)

‘Anne! You’re not going back inside? Oh God -’

‘No, I’m not going back inside. I shall be a camp follower. That’s a way of life too.’

‘You’re mad, I thought you’d got over all that - What do you imagine you’ll do - ?’

‘Oh some sort of social work, anyway that’s where I’m going. I’ve decided to settle over there.’

‘Anne, you
can’t
!’ Gertrude held the edge of the table, lifted it an inch and let it fall. The glasses rocked. ‘You can’t, you won’t, you shan’t!’

‘Sorry, my dear. I’ve made up my mind.’

‘You are not to go away. I can’t do without you.
You are not to go
.’

‘Sorry -’

‘But why? Is it because of Tim?’

‘Tim? No.’

‘You imagine you don’t like him, but you will like him, you’ll learn to -’

‘Yes, I -’

‘Or do you still think I married a worthless man?’ Gertrude’s eyes flashed with anger, with exasperation, with her old eternal will to have her own way.

‘Gertrude, it’s not Tim, I like Tim already, I don’t have to learn.’

‘I’ve thought so much about the four of us, why can’t we all be a happy family? I thought how good it would be at Christmas, with you and me and Tim and the Count. It would have been such a special consolation. I cannot and will not accept that you and Tim can’t get on together. You already like Peter and he likes you -’

‘At Christmas. How touching. How sad.’

‘
What’s
sad? What
is
it? Oh Anne, Anne - is it that you want me?’

‘Oh - you-’

‘You want to have me all to yourself? You can’t share me with Tim? Is that it?’

‘No, I assure you it isn’t that -’

‘I think it is. You’re jealous. You’re going off in a huff.’

‘I’m not going off in a huff!’ said Anne, angry now herself.

‘Anne, be generous. It’s a failure of generosity, a failure of magnanimity. That’s not like you.’

‘I’m not in the least -’

‘Anne, you’re not being
noble,
like what’s-his-name, going off into the snow? What sort of silly idea has got into your head? Are you feeling cross at losing me? You haven’t lost me. Do you imagine you won’t be able to be nice to us all any more -?’

‘Gertrude - please -’

‘Why go away? It’s lunatic. Is it some sort of spite? Peter off to Ireland, you to America, has everyone gone mad? You’ll hate America. Anyway, you’re not to go. I can’t do without you. You’re to stay here, that’s that.’

‘Oh my darling, my dear heart -’

‘You promised you’d stay - you said you’d never be far away -’

‘America isn’t far away nowadays.’

‘Oh that’s unworthy of you! You
wicked
girl! You’re breaking your word and you know it! I felt so safe. I felt so secure, I thought you would be with me forever.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ said Anne. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘But
why
? You
can’t.
I love you, we all love you. You’re at home here, you belong to us. Why are you running away, what are you afraid of? You’ll find a job in London. You know how we said we’d do virtuous things. If you want to do social work I can find you a job myself with the Asian people. There’s hundreds of necessary things to do here. Why go away?’

‘Because I am given to the religious life,’ said Anne, ‘and I have got to be alone.’

Gertrude was silent. Then she said, ‘I was afraid of that.’

‘I am in a sense still a nun.’

‘You’re still wearing that bloody cross around your neck. I hate the sight of that chain.’

‘You have all seen me as a nun.’

‘Yes, but you’re
our
nun. We need you -’

‘I have to go,’ said Anne. ‘I have thought about it. I must go. Forgive me.’

‘Anne -
I must have you too - please
-’

Tears had brimmed over Gertrude’s eyes, and her cheeks in a moment were flushed and wet.

Anne got up and moved her chair next to her friend. They embraced silently. Anne, weeping too, gripped Gertrude’s shoulder, drew the dear head close, their tears mingled. She seemed to see, beyond the blurred outlines of the room, an abomination of desolation. She wept out of an irresistible sympathy with Gertrude’s cry, and she wept for herself and for the loneliness to come.

Quickly they recovered, moved apart, dried their tears.

‘You’ll change your mind,’ said Gertrude.

‘No. No.’

‘Oh
damn
you.’

‘I’m sorry -’

‘So - after all - we are to divide the world between us once again. I am to have the old world, and you the new.’

‘We’ll meet,’ said Anne.

And already she saw it ahead of her, how it would be. The exchange of witty letters, fewer as time went on. The meetings, once in three years perhaps, without the men. They would sit in a bar in New York or Chicago or San Francisco, and talk about old times. And they would laugh their old sad mad laugh, as they had done years ago when Anne was going into the convent.

And as she had said then, at that earlier parting, Anne said now, ‘It’s not good-bye.’

But it was good-bye, and they both knew it.

CHAPTER NINE

‘WHY DID ANNE DECIDE TO GO?’ said Tim.

He and Gertrude were sitting on over dinner at Ebury Street with a bottle of
Beaujolais nouveau.

‘I don’t know. She’s a deep girl. I think when she came to me straight out of the convent and I depended on her so much she built up some sort of picture of our being together forever. I think I had some such picture myself. Then she felt she couldn’t share me with someone else. She was always rather possessive about me, even at college.’

‘It isn’t her disliking me?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘I’d be very sorry to think you sort of lost her because of me -’

‘No, no, it would have been the same whoever I married, she wanted to have me to herself.’

‘She always frightened me rather. But I did try.’

‘I know, my darling, you did. She said something about being given over to the religious life and having to be alone.’

‘I thought she’d given up all that stuff.’

‘So did I. But she hasn’t. With someone like her it’s an addiction. And really she’s a puritan, a masochist.’

Gertrude did not reveal to Tim how very deeply she had been wounded by Anne’s defection. How could she leave me, she thought again and again, how
could
she, when I needed her and loved her so much? Oh why can I not have everything, all that was given to me after Guy went. Anne was such a necessary being. This was another great grief to carry, one that would so very slowly diminish. The indestructible chariot in which she and Anne were to ride on through life had turned out to be an illusory vehicle after all.

At Tim’s suggestion they had abandoned the dining-room and ate their meals on a little table in the drawing-room where a fire was burning every evening now that the weather had turned frosty. Tim had already cleared the plates away, and the chess board had been set out between the wine glasses. They usually played an incompetent game of chess before retiring. They had found out that they were quite evenly matched. They had decided not to tell the Count.

‘You’re lunching with Peter tomorrow?’

‘Yes, it’s your teaching day.’

‘Don’t forget Pat Cameron and Ed are coming to drinks.’

‘
And
Mr and Mrs Singh. That’s a triumph! I do hope your thing with Ed will work.’

‘He’s not doing it just to oblige me?’

‘No, it’s business.’

Ed Roper had lately launched out into ceramics, and had suggested that some of Tim’s cats might appear on some of his mugs. Tim had also suggested to Ed a scheme for designing match boxes. Every tourist will buy a match box.

‘I never saw myself much in commercial art, but now I rather fancy the notion. Perhaps I shall become obsessed with making money. What did Manfred say, by the way?’

‘He thinks it’s a great idea.’

‘I was afraid he would think it was a joke.’

‘Manfred never laughs at money.’

‘No, but he laughs at me.’

‘He likes you.’

‘I like him. I’d like to have him for a pet. I’d love to make a fortune just to impress Manfred. He’s an odd bird, isn’t he.’

‘Yes,’ said Gertrude, ‘he’s very secretive.’

‘Queer?’

‘I don’t know. He’s a very kind man, he keeps an eye on people. He’s very sweet to Veronica Mount, and I know he used to send money to Sylvia Wicks, and I keep meeting people he’s helped.’

‘Will you give Manfred a picture?’

‘I’ll offer him one.’

‘Not the one of grandma.’

‘The one that looks like Sylvia, no, I know you like that one.’

Since they were going to leave Ebury Street Gertrude had decided to distribute some of the family portraits.

‘We have too many possessions,’ said Tim.

‘We can spare a few of them.’

‘I love thinking about our new place. You’re sure you don’t mind Hammersmith? I always wanted to live in Hammersmith somehow.’

‘You shall have your studio with the rivery light.’

‘It’s a sort of sacred area, between Hammersmith Bridge and Chiswick Mall, and there are such lovely pubs.’

‘We shall frequent them all.’

‘Oh Gertrude -’

‘What is it, my darling?’

‘I’m so happy, would it be awful to open that other bottle of B eauj olais ?’

Their days had fallen back into the pattern which they had been achieving in the little peaceful time after their marriage, and yet the texture of their life was different in many ways. Tim was busier, he still had his teaching which promised to continue, and he was involved with Ed Roper and the ceramics factory, learning a new craft. Gertrude continued her work with the Asian community and was hoping to return to part-time school-teaching next year. She was sorting out her library and almost every day she bought books. The idea of studying again, studying with a purpose, pleased her. And of course the new house, whose purchase was now almost complete, obsessed them both. They were quite giddy with looking at wallpapers.

Tim had resumed his solitary London walks. These were necessary. Sometimes he walked all the way from Ebury Street to Ed’s little factory in Hoxton. Sometimes he walked in the parks where the frost-rimmed brown leaves were fallen, and men were gathering them into mounds and making fires whose smoke rose straight up into the cold still air. Sometimes he went back to the picture galleries. The pictures had changed again. They had resumed their beauty and their deep meaning. They were more beautiful and more significant than they had ever been before. Tim did not always stay long. He looked at the pictures and smiled.

Of course he was often afraid, afraid that he was being too lucky. He did not deserve his happiness and might soon lose it. He did not ever think that Gertrude might tire of him or leave him. But he thought she might be mugged or run over or become ill and die. He worried about her safety when she was not with him. Sometimes he thought about Daisy and felt sad. Of course he never went to the Prince of Denmark, but he did not now imagine that Daisy was sitting there with Perkins on her knee. He felt sure that she had gone, she had left London, perhaps left England. He knew that he would never see her again, and he mourned quietly for her as for one dead. He did not avoid speaking of her to Gertrude. Gertrude occasionally asked questions, such as what he and Daisy used to do at Christmas time, but she showed no deep interest in Daisy, or at any rate did not interrogate him. Sometimes he wondered whether, if he had told Gertrude the truth at once, he could somehow have retained Daisy as a friend, as Gertrude had so cleverly retained the Count. But the cases were after all so different. Daisy and her time were over. It was possible to leave someone forever. And it seemed to him in retrospect that he and Daisy had been good friends and had in the end brought about a clean and honourable parting, for which they should be eternally grateful to each other.

Tim was pleased with his new role as a commercial artist who might actually one day earn some money. He was so far from being the spendthrift which the family feared, that his old careful economical habits were hard to break. But, as he dreamed dreams about the new studio with the ‘rivery light’, he found himself returning to old preoccupations. He spent a lot of time drawing funny animals and strange half-creatures which amused Gertrude, sometimes frightened her, and which she regarded as jokes. But for Tim it was as if these beings were coming to him out of a faintly discernible background of relentless form which he could apprehend as taking shape behind them. Sometimes he filled in mathematical patterns of which his ‘animals’ were part. He had reverted to painting on wood, and to his old habits of roving round the rubbish tips. He had painted on big wooden panels with bright acrylic paint some purely abstract ‘network’ pictures which did not displease him. But then how did these networks connect with the organic forms which also so spontaneously appeared? His thoughts about this were nonsense, and he never spoke of these deep things to Gertrude, but he lived calmly and patiently with the nonsense in expectation of, if not clarification, at least change. He began, drawing them out on graph paper, a series of compositions of Leda and the swan. The battling struggling bodies, Leda’s thighs, her breasts, her head bent forward or thrown wildly back, the swan’s slim curving neck, his beating wings and powerful feet, these forms in prolific developing patterns emerged out of a background which he began more and more to think of as determined, and he worked at them in a kind of furious obedience.

He often thought about what had happened in France and pictured vividly in his mind the Great Face and the crystal pool, the flashing water of the canal, the terrible entry to the tunnel. He saw too the yellow beach of stones and the black and white dog climbing out of the water and shaking itself. He looked once or twice at his drawings of the rocks, and thought them good, and hid them away again. Something in his life had begun there, something which tied deeply and mysteriously together Gertrude and his art, or so at any rate he wished to believe. He felt this bond but did not reflect much upon it. He supposed that he and Gertrude would be together again in those holy places, but he did not imagine this pilgrimage and neither he nor she had yet suggested it. He felt a little frightened of going back, but he knew that when Gertrude casually raised the subject it would be easy to envisage.