The Black Prince (Penguin Classics) (8 page)

I said, ‘Steady on. What happened exactly?’

‘Where are the scissors?’ shouted Francis from within.

‘Top drawer dressing-table,’ Arnold shouted back. ‘Christ, what does he want scissors for? Is he going to operate or something ?’

‘What happened? Look, better move down a bit.’

I pushed Arnold and he hobbled stooping, holding the banisters, past the turn of the stair, and sat on the lowest step, holding his head in his hands and staring at the zig-zag design of the hall carpet. The hall was always a bit dim because of the stained glass in the door. I went down past him and sat on a chair, feeling very odd, upset, excited.

‘Oh Christ, oh Christ. Do you think she’ll forgive me?’

‘Of course. What — ?’

‘It all started with such a damn silly argument about one of my books. Oh God, why is one so stupid – we just went on arguing, neither of us would stop at all – We don’t usually discuss my work, I mean Rachel thinks it’s fine, there’s nothing to discuss. Only sometimes if she’s not feeling very well or something she picks on a thing in a book and says it refers to her, or that it’s a picture of something we did or found or something together. Well, you know I don’t draw from life like that, all my stuff is imagined, only Rachel suddenly thinks she spots something which she says is hurtful or spoiling or insulting or something, it’s like a sudden persecution complex, it upsets her terribly. Most of one’s friends are dying to be in one’s books, they see themselves everywhere, but Rachel hates it if I even mention somewhere we’ve been together, she says it spoils it and so on. Anyway, oh Christ, Bradley, what a bloody fool I am – Anyway this started up with this sort of tiff and then she said something hurtful about my writing in general, she said, well never mind – Anyway we started rowing and I suppose I said some pretty critical things about her, just to defend myself, and we’d been drinking brandy after lunch – We don’t usually drink much, but when we started to fight we just went on and on drinking, it was crazy. Then she got terribly angry and lost control and screamed at me, and I hate that. I sort of pushed her to stop her screaming and she clawed my face, see, she made quite a mark on me, God, it still hurts. I felt quite frightened and I just hit her to make her stop. I can’t stand screaming and noise and anger, and they are frightening. She was yelling like a fury and saying awful things about my work and I just hit her with my hand to stop the hysterics, but she went on coming at me and coming at me, and then I picked up the poker from the fireplace just to hold it between us as a barrier, and just at that moment she jerked her head, she was dancing round me like a wild animal, and she jerked her head down and met the poker with a most ghastly crack – oh God – Of course I didn’t mean to hit her, I mean I didn’t hit her — And then she went down on the floor and she was so bloody quiet lying there with her eyes closed, I wasn’t sure she hadn’t stopped breathing – Well, I was in a complete panic and I got a jug of water and poured it over her and she just lay there and I was frantic – And then when I went to get some more water she jumped up and ran upstairs to the bedroom and locked herself in – Then she wouldn’t open, wouldn’t answer – I didn’t know if she was shamming and it was spite or if she was really ill or what, so you see I didn’t know what to do – Oh Christ, I didn’t mean to hit her—’

There were sounds upstairs, the unlocking of a door, and we both jumped up. Francis, leaning down, said, ‘She’s OK.’ His shabby blue suit was covered with dampish reddish silky siftings, which in a moment I recognized as Rachel’s hair, which he must have clipped in order to examine her head. I saw his extremely dirty hand grasping the white banister.

‘Thank God,’ said Arnold. ‘Do you know, I think she may have been shamming all the time. Anyway, thank God. What should – ?’

‘There’s nothing seriously wrong. She’s got a very nasty lump on her head and she’s a bit in shock. Could be a touch of concussion. Keep her in bed and keep the room dark. Aspirins, any of her usual sedatives, hot water bottles, hot drinks, I mean tea and that. Better let her see her own doctor. She’ll soon be herself again.’

‘Oh thank you so much, Doctor,’ said Arnold. ‘So she’s all right, thank heaven.’

‘She wants to see you,’ said Francis to me. We had all moved back up to the landing.

Arnold began again calling, ‘My darling, please—’

‘I’ll deal,’ I said. I half opened the bedroom door, which was unlocked.

‘Only Bradley. Only Bradley.’ The voice, still almost inaudible, was firmer.

‘Oh Christ. This is awful. I’ve had enough—’ said Arnold. ‘Darling – ’

‘You go down and give yourself another drink,’ I told him.

‘I wouldn’t mind a drink,’ said Francis.

‘Oh don’t be angry with me, darling—’

‘Could you chuck out my mac,’ said Francis. ‘I left it in there on the floor.’

I went in and threw the macintosh out and closed the door again. I heard retreating steps as Arnold and Francis went away down the stairs.

‘Lock the door, please.’

I locked it.

Francis had pulled the curtains and there was a sort of thick pink twilight in the room. The evening sun, now palely shining, made the big floppy flowers on the chintz curtains glow in a melancholy way. The room had the rather sinister tedium which some bedrooms have, a sort of weary banality which is a reminder of death. A dressing-table can be a terrible thing. The Baffins had placed theirs in the window where it obstructed the light and presented its ugly back to the road. The plate glass ‘table’ surface was dusty and covered with cosmetic tubes and bottles and balls of hair. The chest of drawers had all its drawers gaping, spewing pink underwear and shoulder straps. The bed was chaotic, violent, the green artificial silk coverlet swooping down on one side and the sheets and blankets creased up into a messy mass, like an old face. There was a warm intimate embarrassing smell of sweat and face powder. The whole room breathed the flat horror of genuine mortality, dull and spiritless and final.

I do not know why I thought then so promptly and prophetically of death. Perhaps it was because Rachel, half under the bedclothes, had covered her face with the sheet.

Her feet, with glossy high-heeled shoes on, protruded from under the green coverlet. I said timidly, almost as if making conversation and to establish a
rapport,
‘Here, let me take your shoes off.’

She remained stiff while, with some difficulty, I pulled off both shoes. I felt the soft warmth of the damp brown stockinged foot. A pungent sour odour joined the vapid smell of the room. I wiped my hands on my trousers.

‘Better get properly into bed. Look, I’ll straighten out your bedclothes a bit.’

She shifted slightly, removing the sheet from her face, and even lifting her legs so that I could pull out a blanket from under them. I arranged her a little bit, pulling the blankets up and turning the sheet back over them. She had stopped crying and was stroking the bruise on her face. The bruise seemed bluer, creeping round the eye socket, and the eye itself was reduced to a watery slit. She lay there, her moist disfigured mouth slightly open, staring at the ceiling.

‘I’ll fill you a hot water bottle, shall I ?’

I found a hot water bottle and filled it from the hot tap in the wash basin. Its soiled woolly cover smelt of sweat and sleep. I got it a bit wet on the outside, but it felt quite warm. I lifted the sheet and blanket and thrust it in beside her thigh.

‘Rachel, aspirins? These are aspirins, aren’t they?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Do you good.’

‘No.’

‘You’ll be all right, the doctor said so.’

She sighed very deeply and flopped her hand back on to the bed, lying now with both hands symmetrically by her side, palms upward, like a limp disentombed Christ figure, still bearing the marks of ill-treatment. Tufts of cut hair adhered to the dried blood on the bosom of her blue dress. She said in a hollow louder voice, ‘This is so awful, so awful, so awful.’

‘You’ll be all right, Rachel, the doctor says—’

‘I feel so utterly – defeated. I shall – die of shame.’

‘Nonsense, Rachel. It’s just one of those things.’

‘And he asks you round – to see it all.’

‘Rachel, he was shaking like a leaf, he thought you were unconscious in here, he was terrified.’

‘I shall never forgive him. Be my witness now. I shall never forgive him. Never, never, never. Not if he were to kneel at my feet for twenty years. A woman does not forgive this ever. She won’t save a man at the end. If he were drowning, I’d watch.’

‘Rachel, you don’t mean this. Please don’t talk in this awful sort of theatrical way. Of course you’ll forgive him. I’m sure there were faults on both sides. After all you hit him too, you put your monogram on his cheek.’

‘Ach – ’ Her exclamation expressed harsh, almost vulgar, disgust. ‘Never,’ she said, ‘never, never. Oh I am – so unhappy—’ The whimpering and the spilling tears began again. Her face was flaming hot.

‘Stop, please. You must rest. Do take some aspirins. Try to sleep a little. I’ll get you some tea, would you like that?’

‘Sleep! With my mind in this state! He has sent me to hell. He has taken my whole life from me. He has spoilt the world. I am as clever as he is. He has just blocked me off from everything. I can’t work, I can’t think, I can’t be, because of him. His stuff crawls over everything, he takes away all my things and turns them into his things. I’ve never been myself or lived my own life at all. I’ve always been afraid of him, that’s what it comes to. All men despise all women really. All women fear all men really. Men are physically stronger, that’s what it comes to, that what’s behind it all. Of course they’re bullies, they can end any argument. Ask any poor woman in the slums, she knows. He has given me a black eye, like any common brawler, any drunken husband like you hear of in the courts. He has hit me before, oh this isn’t the first time by any means. He didn’t know it, I never told him, but the first time he hit me our marriage came to an end. And he talks about me to other women, I know he does, he confides in other women and discusses me with them. They all admire him so and flatter him so. He has taken away my life from me and spoilt it, breaking every little piece of it, like the breaking of every bone in one’s body, every little thing ruined and spoilt and taken away.’

‘Rachel, don’t, don’t, don’t, I won’t listen, you don’t mean any of this rigmarole. Don’t say such things to me. You’ll regret it later.’

‘I’m just as clever as he is. He wouldn’t let me take a job. I obeyed him, I’ve always obeyed him. I haven’t any private things. He owns the world. It’s all his, his, his. I won’t save him at the end. I’ll watch him drown. I’ll watch him burn.’

‘You don’t mean it, Rachel. Better not say it.’

‘And I won’t forgive you either for having seen me like this with my face bruised to pieces and heard me talk horridly like this. I’ll smile at you again but I won’t forgive you in my heart.’

‘Rachel, Rachel, you are upsetting me so!’

‘And now you’ll go downstairs and talk about me vilely to him. I know how men talk.’

‘No, no—’

‘I fill you with disgust. A broken whimpering middle-aged woman.’

‘No—’

‘
Ach
– ’ Again the horrible sound of aggressive violent disgust.

‘Go away now, leave me please. Leave me alone with my thoughts and my torture and my punishment. I shall cry all night, all night. Sorry, Bradley. Tell Arnold I’m going to rest now. Tell him not to come near me again today. Tomorrow I will try to be as usual. There will be no recriminations, no reproaches, nothing. How can I reproach him? He will become angry again, he will frighten me again. Better to be a slave. Tell him I will be as usual tomorrow. Of course he knows that, he won’t worry, he’s feeling better already. Only let me not see him today.’

‘All right, I’ll tell him. Don’t be cross with me, Rachel. It’s not my fault.’

‘Oh, go away.’

‘Shall I get you some tea? The doctor said tea.’

‘Go away.’

I went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I heard a soft bound and then the key turning in the lock. I went down the stairs feeling very shaken and, yes, she had been right, disgusted.

It had become darker, the sun no longer shining, and the interior of the house seemed brown and chill. I made my way to the drawing-room at the back of the house where Arnold and Francis were talking. An electric fire and a lamp had been turned on. I noticed broken glass, broken china, a stain on the carpet. The drawing-room was a big over-patterned room with a lot of pseudo-tapestries and bad modern lithographs. Arnold’s two big stereo loud-speakers, covered with a sort of fawn gauze, took up a lot of the space. Beyond glass doors and a veranda was the equally fussy garden, horribly green in the sunless oppressive light, where a great many birds were singing competitive nonsense lyrics in the small decorative suburban trees.

Arnold jumped up and began to make for the door, but I stopped him. ‘She says she doesn’t want to be visited again today. She says tomorrow she’ll be as usual. She says she’ll go to sleep now.’

Arnold sat down again. He said, ‘Yes, better for her to sleep for a while. Oh my God, that’s a relief. Let her rest a while. I’ll expect she’ll come down for supper in an hour or two. I’ll make her something nice, give her a surprise. God, I do feel relieved.’

I felt I ought to check his relief a little. ‘All the same, it was a very nasty accident.’ I hoped Arnold had not been making his confession to Francis.

‘Yes. But she’ll come down, I’m sure she will. She’s very buoyant. I’ll let her rest now of course. The doctor says it’s not – Have a drink, Bradley.’

‘Thanks, sherry.’ I thought, he has no conception of what he has done, of what she looks like now, of what she feels like now. No doubt he has never tried to read her thoughts. Maybe that way survival lay. Always to ignore the details of one’s misdeeds. Or was I quite wrong? Perhaps already, having made her outcry, she had become quiet. Perhaps she would come down for supper and enjoy the delicacy which her husband had prepared. A marriage is a very secret place.