The Needle's Eye (40 page)

‘Oh, this and that,’ he said, looking at the framed cuttings and handwritten messages. He did not like pictures. ‘Things that struck me,’ he said.

She put her folder down on the desk, got up, and wandered over to the wall, and started to read one of the framed notices: it was an extract from a judgement by Lord Justice Scrutton, written in 1920, which Simon had copied out while at Oxford, and kept on his wall ever since. It said.

… The habits you are trained in, the people with whom you mix, lead to your having a certain class of ideas of such a nature that, when you have to deal with other ideas, you do not give as sound and accurate judgements as you would wish. This is one of the great difficulties at present with Labour. Labour says, ‘Where are your impartial Judges? They all move in the same circles as the employers, and they are all educated and nursed in the same idiom as the employers. How can a Labour man or a trade unionist get impartial justice?’ It is very difficult sometimes to be sure that you have put yourself into a thoroughly impartial position between two disputants, one of your own class and one not of your class.

Rose read it with attention. He was used to these delaying tactics in clients.

‘That’s good,’ she said, sitting down again. ‘That’s a good piece.’

‘That’s why I put it up.’

‘Who was Scrutton?’

‘A judge. A good judge.’

‘Yes.’

He looked at her: she looked very worn. For some reason it seemed entirely natural for them to be sitting on opposite sides of his desk: it was as though the desk had always been there. It was his turn to speak, his initiative.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Come on, now. It must be something.’

She had extreme difficulty in speaking.

‘It’s this case,’ she said. ‘I can’t go on. I’ve had enough. I want to give up.’

‘What do you mean, you want to give up?’

‘I mean exactly that. I can’t go on with it.’

He reflected.

‘But it’s not your case. It’s his.
You
can’t give it up.
He
would have to.’

‘But he won’t. That’s why I’ve got to.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Yes, I can. I thought of a way. I could give him the children. That wouldn’t be illegal, would it? I could just say he could have them, and then he’d drop it, wouldn’t he, because there’d be no point in going on, would there? And if he had the children, and I didn’t claim them, then it would all be settled, wouldn’t it?’

He was so startled by this extraordinary statement that he started to draw patterns on his blotting paper.

‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it?’ she repeated.

Such possibilities crowded his head that he did not dare to look up: that she had gone mad, that she had never cared for the children anyway, that she had been plotting to get rid of them, that she was in collusion with Christopher for financial reasons. Finally, her silence forced him to speak.

‘But why ever should you do that?’ he said, at last.

‘Because I can’t bear to go on, I can’t bear it. I’ve been thinking of ways out of it. I’ve been thinking till my brain splits, and it’s the only answer. Don’t look like that at me, it’s the only answer. They’ll be all right with him, he is their father, and I could see them sometimes, maybe, he’d let me see them.’

‘But why on earth,’ he said, collecting himself, ‘why on earth have you decided this so suddenly? It’s impossible, you know, it’s quite out of the question, but it’s such an amazing thing even to
think
of.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s everything altogether, it’s not sudden really,
I’ve been trying to train myself to face it, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t – and then yesterday the solicitors sent me a copy of Christopher’s affidavit, and it’s so horrible, it’s so horrible …’

She pushed it over the desk, and covered her face with her hands. Through her hands she muttered, ‘I know you saw Christopher, Emily told me, I know what he must have said to you, I know why you didn’t ring me. I’ve made my mind up, I’ve written myself off. I must learn to give up, I must learn to give up. It’s so hard, it’s so hard, but there’s no other way. He is their father, after all, and I know it, I know that he’s sane and I’m mad, so what else can I say, what else can I do? I’m leaving, I’m leaving the country.’

‘You can’t, you can’t,’ he said.

‘Why can’t I?’

‘Because of the children, you must think of them.’

‘Look,’ she said, suddenly, sitting upright, taking her hands away from her face, staring at him wildly, ‘look, it’s no good, I’m not going on with that case. I renounce it. I refuse. I’ve committed enough crimes. I can’t go through with this one.’

‘But Rose, my dear girl, Rose, you’re in the
right
, you silly woman, it’s not you that’s committing a crime, it’s him if it’s anyone, you’re simply defending yourself, it’s not a crime to defend yourself.’

‘It is, it is,’ she said, her voice unpitched, screeching, ‘it is a crime, I can’t do it.’ She rose to her feet, and started to walk up and down. ‘I can’t do it. I must give in, I must give in or die, I know it. There is no right and wrong. Go on, read his affidavit, read it.’

‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘Look, Rose, calm down,’ he said.

‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,’ she said, still pacing.

‘I don’t want to read it,’ he said, ‘because I trust you. Look, I may not know you well, but I know you well enough. Of course there are two sides to every question, and I’m quite well aware that your husband’s solicitors will have made out a good case for him, that’s their job, after all, but there’s no need for me to believe it, or for anyone.’

‘But
I
believe it,’ she said, pausing, turning on him. ‘
I
believe it, that’s the point, he’s right, he’s right. I’m a hopeless mother, I know
I am, I’m mean and mad and selfish, he’s
right
about me, how can I defend myself when he’s right?’

‘Now look, Rose. Sit down. Please sit down. There, that’s right. Now listen. I know enough about you to know that you are a perfectly adequate mother. And also I know enough about Christopher to know that he’s a dangerous man, he’s got it all worked out, he knows how to get you, I can see that – but you mustn’t listen to him. No judge would listen to him. It doesn’t exist, this case. It’s ridiculous, I can’t bear to see you in such a state about a case that doesn’t exist. When I think of the cases that some people have to answer, and they do it, you can believe me, without turning a hair – it’s nonsense, the whole thing is nonsense.’

‘But even if the case went on, and I won it, what would I do then?’

‘You would carry on as you do now. Exactly.’

‘But don’t you see that I can’t? I couldn’t live, if I’d done that to him.’

‘You’re not doing anything to him.’

‘But I am. But I am. I’ve ruined his life, I know I have. I ruin everything. I can’t go on. I shall take myself away.’

He did not see how she could possibly be serious, however much she might look it. But he did not know how to handle her either. He had seen her in distress before, he had seen her in tears even monotonously often, but now she was not crying, she was gone far away, she was no longer regarding herself with a detached amusement: her eyes were staring, her hands clutching involuntarily, her face was white and working with an accumulation of conflicting emotion, her whole being caught up, clumsily. So he did not try to handle her: instead, he stated the obvious.

‘But you can’t leave the children,’ he said. ‘It’s an impossibility. You can’t do it.’

‘That’s what I used to think,’ she said, flinging herself once more to her feet. ‘I thought that was it, that was the one thing that was a fact. I can’t tell you the agony I’ve been through, knowing that there was no way out, because I couldn’t move. It was like before the divorce, but worse. Like being in a trap, in a hole, on a tightrope, and
every way I moved would be death. But not every way. Because if I give him the children –
if
I did,
if
I did, then there would be a way out. I could move, it would be different, it wouldn’t be the same trap. It’s
all
I can do. It’s the only move. And I can’t bear not to move any more.’

‘There must be other things you could do.’

‘I could go back to Christopher. I could move house. It would come to the same thing. But that’s all. That’s the only other thing I could do. It’s simple. Either he has the children, or I have them, or we both have them. It’s unendurable for me to keep them. He’s made it impossible. It would be impossible to go back to him. So there is only one answer.’

‘You wouldn’t consider,’ he said (surreptitiously consulting the affidavit) ‘compromising? By moving house?’

‘How can I move house? It’s my whole being that’s there.’

‘It’s arbitrary. That it happens to be there.’

‘Yes. It’s arbitrary. But it’s so. Can you imagine me, in a nice house in a nice district? Can you imagine it?’ She was looking out of the window as she spoke: she turned on him, again aggressively, and said, ‘I can’t afford this case. I can’t pay my solicitors. It’ll ruin me. I can’t afford to defend myself. Financially, spiritually, either way, I can’t afford it. I’ll have to get out. That’s all there is to it. I won’t give, so I’ll have to go.’

He was dazed by her ugly, meaningless logic. He wanted to ask her to marry him, immediately. He even thought of getting down upon his knees. Instead, he said, ‘Look, Rose, you mustn’t give up so easily. Why don’t you try talking to Christopher about it? Why don’t I try and talk to him for you? He can’t mean this, he can’t mean to have done this to you. He wouldn’t know what to do with the children if you gave them to him.’

‘You mustn’t talk to him,’ she said. ‘Please. I know what he’s like, he’s as stubborn as I am, you’ll never get him to change anything. He’s fixed, he’s set. And if he says he wants them, he’ll make himself have them. Like the divorce. He didn’t want me, he hated me, but he wouldn’t let me go. He’ll take them from me, he’ll take them, whether he wants them or not.’

‘But don’t you
see
,’ he repeated, with a fitting note of exasperation, ‘that no judge in the country would
let
him take them?’

‘Ah yes,’ she said, gazing at him, with a mysterious, mad, perverse, elevated smile upon her face, a smile quite awful in its unnatural dignity, ‘ah yes, but I
give
them, you remember, I
give
them.’

And there she stood, pale, irradiated. Then, as suddenly, she moaned, and started to toss her head about, and her hands flew to her hair, and started to tug at it. He leapt to his feet, left his desk, went across to her, took her arms, and gently dissuaded her: her arms were as stiff as sticks, her hair where she had pulled at it stood in clumps, she was not there in the flesh. He held her arm, through her raincoat, and propelled her to the chair, and sat her down: she stumbled clumsily, as though disconnected, and sat as though the joints in her legs had been folded together by his propulsion, like the blades of a penknife. He stood by her, a hand on her shoulder: she stared ahead, unseeing. He did not know what to do with her: she had gone quite out of reach. He would have offered her a drink, if he had had one, but could not risk leaving the room in search of one, so he did nothing but stand there, trying to think of something to say to her. He was helpless, there was nothing he could offer, reason she had rejected, and he couldn’t follow her in her non-reasoning. What was she seeing, with those blank eyes?

Whatever she saw, she did not begin to tell him, because the telephone rang. He had asked the girl not to put calls through, but he could not leave it ringing. It was Jefferson, wanting to see him, or so he said, urgently. I can’t come at the moment, I’m busy, said Simon, but while he was trying to explain that he would come later he saw Rose get to her feet, and start mechanically to flatten down her hair, preparing to leave: before he got off the phone she was at the door, and had opened it. It opened on to the outer office: the secretary was watching.

‘Don’t go yet,’ he said. ‘Don’t go, I’m sure there’s something we can do.’

‘There isn’t,’ said Rose, dully. ‘I’m sorry I troubled you. I’m sorry.’

He couldn’t make a scene, he couldn’t detain her. She smiled at him, a little frozen smile.

‘Goodbye,’ she said.

Anyone else he would have accused of taking pleasure from his helplessness.

‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll get in touch with me, before you do anything.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, absently, ‘oh yes.’

And off she went. He watched her go: he went to his window and watched her cross the courtyard below. The distance ached and widened, as she shrunk and withered from his sight. He could have recalled her, he could have shouted, he could not comprehend how he had let her go: and relentlessly, inevitably, she grew smaller, and went away. It was not optical, the impression of her going: it was more that she shrank on his grasp, as her bony shoulder had sunk like a dead bird beneath his hand. He had failed her, he had done nothing for her, and now she turned the corner, her plastic bag slung over her wrist, her hands deep in her pockets, her head bent as though walking into a wind. Hunched and private. He knew that way of walking, a posture of indifferent pain, a shrugged confronting of a hostile element. It was his own.

It was a cold day, for June. A light rain fell. Looking out of the window still, herself gone, he was surprised to see no leaves falling for the light was autumnal. He thought of Easter, and the snow in Cornwall, and the man who had not been Christopher, bearing the child upon his shoulders through the gathering blizzard: he thought of Rose, and Emily, and their children running around in vests, and the chickens and the armchair. It was a Friday: the next day was the beginning of the Whitsun weekend, another unwelcome holiday, and it was about this that Jefferson had so inopportunely wished to consult him: some case that might require attention during the vacation. If he had not rung at that moment, perhaps some saving word would have come to his lips? Perhaps he would have kept her there with him, have thought of some way of convincing her? Perhaps, perhaps. It was not likely. How dreadful it is, he thought suddenly,
that children are born of two parents, that they are the property of two parents with equal claim, that they do not spring fully grown from the brain, as Athene sprang from Zeus. What a ghastly mistake in evolution, for man to have attached such significance to identity, when he is condemned for survival to partition. Because, like Rose, he could not convince himself that the children were hers alone. He remembered them in the car with Christopher, laughing: later, proudly describing its gadgets. Christopher himself, alone, plotting, brooding, playing legal games in a mockery of the care of which he was deprived. He thought of the judgement of Solomon. A chancery judge, in despair over an impossible case, had invoked the ghost of Solomon: in genuine misery, a kindly old grandfather, he had said, I have not his wisdom, and the newspapers had derided him for a decision taken in the darkness of impossibility. But a decision had had to be taken. And so Rose, the true mother perhaps, would leave the baby kicking there, in the chalk circle, unable to resist a rival claim.