Pincher Martin (16 page)

“Why did you agree to come here with me, then?”

Three patches.

“I thought you were a gentleman.”

Inevitably.

“You make me tired.”

“Take me home, please.”

“Do you really mean that in the twentieth century? You really feel insulted? You don’t just mean ‘No, I’m sorry, but no’?”

“I want to go home.”

“But look——”

I must, I must, don’t you understand you bloody bitch?

“Then I’ll take a bus.”

One chance. Only one.

“Wait a minute. Our language is so different. Only what I’m trying to say is—well, it’s difficult. Only don’t you understand that I—Oh Mary, I’ll do anything to prove it to you!”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t care for you in that way.”

And then he, compelled about the rising fury to tread the worn path:

“Then it’s still—no?”

Ultimate insult of triumph, understanding and compassion.

“I’m sorry, Chris. Genuinely sorry.”

“You’ll be a sister to me, I know.”

But then the astonishing answer, serenely, brushing away the sarcasm.

“If you like.”

He got violently to his feet.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here for Christ’s sake.”

Wait, like a shape in the driving seat. Does she know nothing of me at all? She comes from the road house, one foot swerved in front of the other as in the photographs, walking an invisible tight-rope across the gravel, bearing proudly the invincible banner of virginity.

“That door’s not properly shut. Let me.”

Subtle the scent, the touch of the cheap, transmuted tweed, hand shaking on the gear, road drawing back, hooded wartime lights, uncontrollable summer lightning ignoring the regulations from beyond that hill to away south in seven-league boots, foot hard down, fringes of leaves jagged like a painted drop, trees touched, brought into being by sidelights and bundled away to the limbo of lost chances.

“Aren’t you driving rather fast?”

Tilted cheek, pursed mouth, eyes under the foolish hat, remote, blacked out. Foot hard down.

“Please drive slower, Chris!”

Type-scream, gear-whine, thrust and roar——

“Please——!”

Rock, sway, silk hiss of skid, scene film-flicking.

Power.

“Please! Please!”

“Let me, then. Now. Tonight, in the car.”

“Please!”

Hat awry, road unravelled, tree-tunnel drunk up——

“I’ll kill us.”

“You’re mad—oh, please!”

“Where the road forks at the whitewashed tree, I’ll hit it with your side. You’ll be burst and bitched.”

“Oh God, oh God.”

Over the verge, clout on the heap of dressing, bump, swerve back, eating macadam, drawing it in, pushing it back among the lost chances, pushing it down with time back to the cellar——

“I’m going to faint.”

“You’ll let me make love to you? Love to you?”

“Please stop.”

On the verge, trodden with two feet to a stop, with dead engine and lights, grabbing a stuffed doll, plundering a doll that came to life under the summer lightning, knees clapped together over the hoarded virginity, one hand pushing down the same tweed skirt, one to ward off, finding with her voice a protection for the half-naked breast——

“I shall scream!”

“Scream away.”

“You filthy, beastly——”

Then the summer lightning over a white face with two staring eyes only a few inches away, eyes of the artificial woman, confounded in her pretences and evasion, forced to admit her own crude, human body—eyes staring now in deep and implacable hate.

Nothing out of the top drawer now. Vowels with the burr of the country on them.

“Don’t you understand, you swine? You can’t——”

The last chance. I must.

“I’ll marry you then.”

More summer lightning.

“Chris. Stop laughing. D’you hear? Stop it! I said stop it!”

“I
loathe
you. I never want to see you or hear of you as long as I live.”

*

Peter was riding behind him and they were flat out. It was his new bike under him but it was not as good as Peter’s new one. If Peter got past with that new gear of his he’d be uncatchable. Peter’s front wheel was overlapping his back one in a perfect position. He’d never have done that if he weren’t deadly excited. The road curves here to the right, here by the pile of dressing. They are built up like rock—a great pile of stones for mending the road down to Hodson’s Farm. Don’t turn, go straight on, keep going for the fraction of a second longer than he expects. Let him turn, with his overlapping wheel. Oh clever, clever, clever. My leg, Chris, my leg—I daren’t look at my leg. Oh Christ.

The cash-box. Japanned tin, gilt lines. Open empty. What are you going to do about it, there was nothing written down. Have a drink with me some time.

  She’s the producer’s wife, old boy.

 Oh clever, clever, clever power, then you can bloody well walk home; oh clever, real tears break down triumph, clever, clever, clever.

Up stage. Up stage. Up stage. I’m a bigger maggot than you are. You can’t get any further up stage because of the table, but I can go all the way up to the french window.

“No, old man. I’m sorry, but you’re not essential.”

“But George—we’ve worked together! You know me——”

“I do, old man. Definitely.”

“I should be wasted in the Forces. You’ve seen my work.

“I have, old man.”

“Well then——”

The look up under the eyebrows. The suppressed smile. The smile allowed to spread until the white teeth were reflected in the top of the desk.

“I’ve been waiting for something like this. That’s why I didn’t kick you out before. I hope they mar your profile, old man. The good one.”

There were ten thousand ways of killing a man. You could poison him and watch the smile turn into a rictus. You could hold his throat until it was like a hard bar.

She was putting on a coat.

“Helen——”

“My sweet.”

The move up, vulpine, passionate.

“It’s been so long.”

Deep, shuddering breath.

“Don’t be corny, dear.”

Fright.

“Help me, Helen, I must have your help.”

Black maggot eyes in a white face. Distance. Calculation. Death.

“Anything my sweet, but of course.”

“After all you’re Pete’s wife.”

“So crude, Chris.”

“You could persuade him.”

Down close on the settee, near.

“Helen——”

“Why don’t you ask Margot, my sweet, or that little thing you took out driving?”

Panic. Black eyes in a white face with no more expression than hard, black stones.

Eaten.

*

Nathaniel bubbling over in a quiet way—not a bubble over, a simmer, almost a glow.

“I have wonderful news for you, Chris.”

“You’ve met an aeon at last.”

Nat considered this, looking up at the reference library. He identified the remark as a joke and answered it with the too profound tones he reserved for humour.

“I have been introduced to one by proxy.”

“Tell me your news. Is the war over? I can’t wait.”

Nathaniel sat down in the opposite armchair but found it too low. He perched himself on the arm, then got up and rearranged the books on the table. He looked into the street between the drab black-out curtains.

“I think finally, I shall go into the Navy.”

“You!”

Nodding, still looking out of the window:

“If they’d have me, that is. I couldn’t fly and I shouldn’t be any use in the Army.”

“But you clot! You don’t have to go, do you?”

“Not—legally.”

“I thought you objected to war.”

“So I do.”

“Conchie.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. One thinks this and that—but in the end, you know, the responsibility of deciding is too much for one man. I ought to go.”

“You’ve made your mind up?”

“Mary agrees with me.”

“Mary Lovell? What’s she got to do with it?”

“That’s my news.”

Nathaniel turned with a forgotten book in his hands. He came towards the fire, looked at the armchair, remembered the book and put it on the table. He took a chair, drew it forward and perched on the edge.

“I was telling you after the show last night. You remember? About how our lives must reach right back to the roots of time, be a trail through history?”

“I said you were probably Cleopatra.”

Nat considered this gravely.

“No, I don’t think so. Nothing so famous.”

“Henry the Eighth, then. Is that your news?”

“One constantly comes across clues. One has—flashes of insight—things given. One is——” The hands began to spread sideways by the shoulders as though they were feeling an expansion of the head—“One is conscious when meeting people that they are woven in with one’s secret history. Don’t you think? You and I, for example. You remember?”

“You used to talk an awful lot of cock.”

Nathaniel nodded.

“I still do. But we are still interwoven and the same things hold good. Then when you introduce me to Mary—you remember? You see how we three act and re-act. There came that sudden flash, that—stab of knowledge and certainty that said, ‘I have known you before.’”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“She felt it too. She said so. She’s so—wise, you know! And now we are both quite certain. These things are written in the stars, of course, but under them, Chris, we have to thank you for bringing us together.”

“You and Mary Lovell?”

“Of course these things are never simple and we’ve meditated apart from each other and together——”

An enchantment was filling the room. Nat’s head seemed to grow large and small with it.

“And I should be awfully pleased, Chris, if you’d be best man for me.”

“You’re going to marry! You and——”

“That was the joyous news.”

“You can’t!”

He heard how anguished his voice was, found he was standing up.

Nat looked past him into the fire.

“I know it’s sudden but we’ve meditated. And you see, I shall be going into the Navy. She’s so good and brave. And you, Chris—I knew you would bring your whole being to such a decision.”

He stood still, looking down at the tousled black hair, the length of limb. He felt the bleak recognition rising in him of the ineffable strength of these circumstances and this decision. Not where he eats but where he is eaten. Blood rose with the recognition, burning in the face, power to break. Pictures of her fell through his mind like a dropped sheaf of snapshots—Mary in the boat, carefully arranging her skirt; Mary walking to church, reeking of it, the very placing of her feet and carriage of her little bum an insolence; Mary struggling, knees clapped together over the hoarded virginity, trying with one hand to pull down her skirt, with the other to ward off, the voice finding the only protection for her half-naked breast——

“I shall scream!”

Nat looked up, his mouth open.

“I’m not being a fool this time you know. You needn’t worry.”

The snapshots vanished.

“I was—I don’t know what I was saying, Nat—quoting from some play or other.”

Nat spread his hands and smiled diffidently.

“The stars can’t be thwarted.”

“Especially if they happen to agree with what you want.”

Nat considered this. He reddened a little and nodded gravely.

“There is that danger.”

“Be careful, Nat, for God’s sake.”

But not known, not understood—what is he to be careful of? Of staying near me? Of standing with her in the lighted centre of my darkness?

“You’ll be here to look after her, Chris, when I’ve gone.”

There is something in the stars. Or what is this obscure impulse that sets my words at variance with my heart?

“Only be careful. Of me.”

“Chris!”

Because I like you, you fool and hate you. And now I hate you.

“All right, Nat, forget it.”

“There’s something the matter.”

An impulse gone, trodden down, kicked aside.

“I shall be in the Navy, too.”

“But the theatre!”

Gone down under calculation and hate.

“One has one’s better feelings.”

“My dear man!” Nat was standing and beaming. “Perhaps we can be in the same ship.”

Drearily and with the foreknowledge of a chosen road.

“I’m sure we shall be. That’s in our stars.”

Nat nodded.

“We are connected in the elements. We are men for water.”

*

“Water. Water.”

The clothes bound him like a soggy bundle. He hauled himself out into the sun. He lay there feeling that he spread like seaweed. He got his hands up and plucked at the toggles of his duffle while the snapshots whirled and flew like a pack of cards. He got the toggles free and plucked at the rest of his clothing. When he had only vest and pants on he crawled away, yards over the rock to the water-hole. He crawled up the High Street and lay down by the Dwarf.

“If I am not delirious this is steam rising from my clothes. Sweat.”

He propped his back against the Dwarf.

“Be intelligent.”

His legs before him were covered with white blotches. There were more on his stomach when he lifted his vest, on his arms and legs. They were deformations at the edge of the eye-sockets.

“Stay alive!”

Something fierce pushed out of his mind.

“I’ll live if I have to eat everything else on this bloody box!”

He looked down at his legs.

“I know the name for you bloody blotches. Urticaria. Food poisoning.”

He lay quiet for a time. The steam rose and wavered. The blotches were well-defined and of a dead whiteness. They were raised so that even swollen fingers could feel their outline.

“I said I should be ill and I am.”

He peered hazily round the horizon but it had nothing to give. He looked back at his legs and decided that they were very thin for all the blotches. Under his vest he could feel the trickle of water that found its way down from blotch to blotch.