Penmarric (36 page)

“Just think how nice it will be for you to have William there,” she said, “and what fun it’ll be for you to mix with boys of your own age again after all those solitary lessons with the vicar! Of course I shall miss you very, very much—” she stooped to kiss me—“but I shall come down to the school at half-term as usual, and, I shall mark each day on the calendar to make the time pass more quickly.”

The thought of seeing her at half-term cheered me up enormously. I even managed to say in an interested voice, “When is half-term? Will we have long to wait?”

“I believe it’s in early November,” said Mama, and Papa added at once, “Mama and I will both come down and we can all spend the weekend together at Brighton.”

Brighton.

I liked it at first. I was enjoying my life at school after a shaky start and the usual wretched first nights which every small new boy must expect, but even though I was enjoying myself it was still pleasant to escape from Rottingdean for three days and drive into Brighton with Papa and Mama.

“Brighton is a fascinating town,” said Papa. “There’s much to see.”

Grand, elegant Brighton with its splendid esplanade, its Regency houses, its fantasy of a palace, the antique shops of “The Lanes,” the opulent hotels which faced the sea! We admired it all, from the white cliffs out toward Rottingdean to the smooth green Downs that rose behind the town toward the Devil’s Dyke. Beautiful, spacious Brighton! How fortunate we were, we thought, to be at school near such a colorful and individual seaside town.

Papa took a suite in the largest, grandest hotel, and on Saturday night we all went down to the hotel dining room for dinner.

We ate one course. It was onion soup, very delicious. We had ordered the next courses and were waiting for our fish.

“Papa,” I said, “was George the Fourth a good king or a bad king?”

He smiled. “Adrian, one of these days you’ll learn that nothing in this world is black and white. You cannot divide people neatly into—”

He stopped.

“Yes, but, Papa …” I began and then I stopped, too.

Mama was deathly white. They were both staring past me over my shoulder. I swiveled around, very frightened, to see what had given them such an appalling shock, but there was no one there except a woman with a boy of about my age.

Then I noticed that the woman was staring at Mama and Papa with an equally appalled expression. As I watched I saw the boy tug at her sleeve and speak to her before turning to look at us again. For a split second his eyes met mine. His were frosty, hostile and bright with an emotion that might have been either anger or fear or simply indignation. He had fair hair, fairer even than Mama’s, and a powerful build, which made me identify him automatically with the current school bully. As I stared at him, fascinated, the woman backed away from us. She was a tall woman, perhaps a little older than Mama, and she wore a flashy gown—or at least it probably seemed flashy to me because Mama tended to dress simply, in quiet pastel colors. She had pale gold hair, very elaborately dressed, and the frosty eyes I had first noticed when I had seen the boy.

The headwaiter was beginning to flutter around her like a moth infatuated with a dazzlingly brilliant flame.

“Who is it?” said my voice much too loudly. “Who is she?”

Nobody answered. The woman turned and went rapidly out of the room while the boy ran after her, trying to catch her sleeve as if he too were seeking an explanation.

Papa stood up.

We all looked at him immediately but he did not speak. He did not even see us. He was walking away from our table as if he were indeed under one of the spells I had encountered so often in my favorite fairy tales. A voice from my memory began to recite silently: And the evil enchantress cast a spell over the good prince and imprisoned him in her bower for a thousand years …

“Mark,” said Mama. “Mark.”

To my horror I saw that she was dreadfully distressed. I turned away very frightened now, and looked at William, but he looked as frightened as I was.

“Papa!” I cried, standing up and running after him. “Papa, don’t go! Don’t leave us!”

He stopped, looked down at me. After a moment he looked back over his shoulder at Mama.

He came back to our table.

“Rose,” he said. “You understand. I shall have to speak to her. We can leave here tonight.”

Mama nodded. It was as if she could not speak.

“I shan’t be long. Stay here with the boys and try and finish your dinner.”

She nodded again and picked up her fish knife as if the fish were already in front of her. “Yes, Mark. Of course.”

He was gone. We were alone. Mama was trying not to cry. I remember thinking, my fear mingling with my anger: He’s made her unhappy. He shouldn’t have done that.

The waiter arrived with our fish. We sat looking at it for a moment.

“Please eat,” said Mama in the rapid voice she kept for partings on station platforms. “Please, darlings. Don’t let it get cold.”

I looked at William. He pushed away his plate, so I pushed away mine.

“Mama,” said William. “Please tell us. Who—”

“William, I’m sorry but I simply can’t. I know it’s silly of me but I can’t talk about it. You’ll have to ask Papa.”

I said in a small voice that trembled, “Is it bad?”

“Yes,” said Mama, “but don’t be frightened. There’s no need to be frightened at all. Papa will explain everything when he comes back.”

We did not say anything after that. We merely sat and waited for Papa. When the waiter came to remove our plates Mama with our consent canceled the rest of the order.

“We can have a tray sent up to our room,” she said, “if we feel hungry later on.”

We went on waiting for Papa. We waited a long time.

“Could we go and sit in the drawing room?” I said, shifting uncomfortably on my high-backed chair.

“No,” said Mama. “Papa told us to stay here, and we shall stay here till he comes back.”

We went on waiting.

At last William said suddenly, “Here he is.”

I swiveled around. He came toward us slowly, not hurrying, and I noticed that when he looked across the room he looked not at Mama but at us. His face was very white and he had two red marks across his cheek as if he had scratched himself too violently with his fingernails.

“Well,” he said, “that’s settled.” He added to Mama; not looking at her, “I’m so sorry, Rose. I’m so very sorry.”

Mama did not speak.

“It’s all right,” he said, taking her hand but still not looking at her. “It’s all over, Rose. I finished it. It’s over once and for all; No more unexorcised ghosts. No more Christmases and Easters in Cornwall. No more living two lives.”

“Mark—”

“I finished it, Rose. It’s over.”

“Mark, please—”

“I finished it, you see. I ended it once and for all.”

“Please,” whispered Mama, “please look at me.”

But he could not. He pulled back his chair and sat down and all he could say was “It’s over. I finished it.”

Very slowly Mama stood up.

“Don’t go, Rose!”

“I want to wait in the drawing room.” Her voice was faint. “Please explain to the boys.”

“Rose—”

“I’m quite well,” she said. “It’s nothing. I just don’t want to be here when you tell the boys.”

“Rose, my darling Rose …” He stood up clumsily and looked at her for the first time. I could not see his expression.

“It was so squalid,” he said, mumbling so that it was difficult to bear him. “So sordid. I cannot begin to explain—”

“I understand.”

“You cannot. It’s too bestial for you to understand.”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters as long as you—”

“I do. More than anything else in the world.”

They looked at each other. We looked at them but they did not see us. My mother was crying.

“Then everything is all right,” she said, turning away so that we should not see her tears, “isn’t it?”

“Let me come with you to the drawing room.”

“No … please, Mark. The boys—”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course. The boys.”

“I’ll wait for you in the drawing room.”

“Very well.”

We all watched her as she walked away out of the dining room and disappeared from sight. Finally Papa sat down again opposite us, motioned the headwaiter and ordered a glass of brandy. As we watched him in silence he selected a cigar, lit it and then said slowly, “I’m afraid I have some thing to say which should have been said a very long time ago.”

We waited, staring at him. Presently the headwaiter brought him a glass of brandy and Papa drank half of it as soon as it was put in front of him.

After a long silence he said, “I expect you both wondered who the woman and the little boy were.”

We remained silent. “I suppose they were acquaintances of yours,” said William uneasily at last.

“Yes,” said Papa. “They are.” He fidgeted with his cigar and added without expression, “The boy is my son.”

We gaped at him.

“Our brother, you mean?” I said, my heart pounding fast.

“Your half-brother. The woman with him was his mother.”

“You mean …” I was confused. I could feel my filing and classification system begin to disintegrate, “Isn’t it illegal,” I said at last, “to have two wives at once?”

“I have only one wife.”

“Did the lady have a baby even though she’s not married to you?”

“She is married to me,” said Papa. “Your mother is the one who isn’t married.”

We looked at him dumbly. He took a mouthful of brandy and began to crush his cigar to pulp again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, more to William than to me. “I should have told you long ago, but we were all so happy and somehow the opportunity never seemed to present itself.”

William said nothing.

“But how could you and Mama have decided to have William and me?” I said. “You knew it was bad.”

“Yes,” he said. “It was bad.”

“But, Papa, if you and Mama are good how could you possibly do something that was bad?”

“Nothing is black and white in this world, Adrian. One cannot divide people into two categories and neatly label one ‘good’ and the other ‘evil.’ When you’re older you’ll understand. Life isn’t like that.”

William said so icily that I hardly recognized his voice, “Why didn’t you marry Mama? Why did you marry that other woman?”

“Because I thought I was in love with that other woman. I did not realize how much I loved your mama.”

“Do you love her?”

“Very much.”

“Then why don’t you divorce your wife at once and marry her?”

“I have no grounds for obtaining a divorce,” said Papa evenly. “I would marry your mama if I could, but I can’t.”

I said cautiously, tracing a little pattern on the tablecloth to help me concentrate, “It’s just as if you really were married to Mama, though. We’re just like any other family really.”

“Yes, indeed. In fact we’re more of a family than many families I know.”

“Well,” said William in a loud, rude, disagreeable tone, that was quite unlike him, “in that case I can’t think why anyone bothers to get married. If one can live just as happily without God’s blessing and be a family just like anyone else, why is there an institution of marriage at all? If you marry the wrong person and everything turns out to be a mess all that happens is that lots of people are made unhappy and you can’t marry the person you should have married in the first place. If you never marry anyone, then no one would ever be unhappy. I shall never, never get married, never as long as I live.” And he pushed back his chair abruptly and ran out of the room.

I stared after him and then turned to Papa. He looked shaken and old. There were dark shadows under his eyes and deep lines about his mouth.

“Never mind, Papa,” I said, taking pity on him because he looked so tired. “We can play the pretend game a little differently, that’s all. We can pretend to ourselves that you and Mama really are married.”

He shook his head without speaking.

“Papa, was it not true about Grandfather Parrish wanting Mama to keep his name?”

“No, that was a story Mama told—foolishly or otherwise—in an attempt not to hurt you when you were younger. It was a great pity she—I—did not tell you the truth from the beginning.”

I traced another pattern on the tablecloth. “Does God think I’m sinful and wicked?”

“No, of course not.”

“But you and Mama are.”

“We love each other. God will understand and forgive us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course! How could God ever think Mama was wicked?”

“But she did a wicked thing.”

“Everyone does wicked things,” said Papa. “Only saints are good all the time and I don’t love Mama because she’s a saint. I love her because she’s human.”

“Then it’s all right for people to live as if they’re married when they’re not because God will forgive them.”

“No, I didn’t say that.” As always, he was endlessly patient with me. “What I’m saying is this: That if two people love each other as deeply as Mama and I do, yet for some reason cannot marry although they want to very much, then I do believe that God, being merciful, will forgive them for their sins. But for two people to have a casual affair—that is to say, to meet, to act for a few hours, days, months, as if they were married yet possessing no intention whatever of marrying each other—that’s the sort of relationship which is wrong and which God doesn’t forgive easily. God can forgive love but not lust.”

“How can you tell when it’s love and when it’s lust?”

“Adrian,” said Papa, “if there was a simple answer to that question there would not be nearly so many unhappy husbands and wives … But that’s something you can’t possibly understand at the age of eight. Come, I think it’s time we joined Mama in the drawing room and found out what’s happened to William.”

Mama was alone. Papa left me with her while he went off to discover where William had gone.

“Poor Mama,” I said, hugging her. “Don’t look so sad! I don’t mind in the least! It doesn’t make any difference to me so long as God isn’t cross with us for being bad. But Papa says we’re good anyway.” I had a bright idea. “Let’s go upstairs to our sitting room,” I suggested, wanting to cheer her up, “and I’ll read aloud to you from the book I’ve brought with me from the school library.”