Sailors on the Inward Sea (17 page)

I WENT OUT
for a stroll a little while ago, Ford, and have just returned with a fresh notion whose outriders started pestering me as I walked along the Old Port, trying to guess the character of ships from the stack of lights rising above their invisible hulls, an old sailor's version of a crossword puzzle. Then I realized that something was missing from my tale and hurriedly retraced my steps to my bungalow before I lost my train of thought.

You and I, Ford, are closer to the heart of this memoir than I knew when I began it. On the way back from the port I thought of you and Conrad collaborating on your three novels, merging your skills and philosophies into a third narrative entity, a child of your minds' fruitfulness. But it wasn't until I was almost home that I saw how close the three of us have become in the pages of this memoir. Conrad's use of me parallels your use of your dear friend as a model for characters in
The Good Soldier
and
Parade's End.
You must feel an overwhelming sympathy with Conrad's discovery of the spark for the Marlow books in the reality of another man's experience. I wish there had been some way for you and Conrad and me to talk when the events of this story were still unfolding. You could have advised him about your own experience and probably lessened his discomfort, discomfort that lasted for years, refusing to let go until he finished the Fox-Bourne novel.

S
INCE
C
ONRAD
refused to have a telephone at the Pent because it played havoc with his concentration, I wrote to him the morning after I finished reading
Lord Jim.
Looking back now at what happened as a result of that letter, I should have simply told him the bald truth about why I wanted to see him, but it seemed impossible—the reason was too private, too blamed intimate to put in writing. What would I have said? I just learned that you borrowed my character and some of my experiences for your Marlow books and wonder if you'd mind explaining why you never mentioned it? Knowing Conrad, you know the explosion that would have set off, one that could have been heard miles from the Pent. Instead, I went through half a dozen sheets of paper before lighting on an equivocal explanation that avoided an outright lie, saying that the city was getting on my nerves, which was true, that he had been much on my mind, also true, and that an invitation to visit him for a weekend would be a boon. His reply came by return post. He was delighted and would expect me the following Friday

There are more dramatic routes in this world than the one from London to Kent—through the Alps, for instance, snow-covered peaks leaning over the countryside like tottering patriarchs, or India, where you can see elephants painted in garish colors, soaring temples—but the British countryside has virtues particularly suited to a man who has traveled the greater part of his life in the more exotic parts of the world, its streams and ricks and villages a welcome relief from fantastic upheavals of the earth and shrines to unknown gods.
The fields of rye and wheat sweeping by outside the window, separated by hedgerows and patches of rich brown earth left fallow or plowed for seed, had the look of a counterpane. I wanted to pull England up to my chin and drift off to pleasant dreams. Instead, Marlow, Jim, Kurtz, other characters entirely Conrad's invention, demanded my attention. At some point, my thoughts drifted to an island in the archipelago where I used to trade, a place of thatched-hut villages hanging on the banks of a green river whose inhabitants ran away from anyone brandishing a camera, convinced for what they believed were perfectly sound reasons that he was intent on stealing their souls. Conrad had done pretty much the same thing snapping my picture in the Marlow books, immobilizing me for the delectation of his readers no less than the image of a Malay is forever captured in a photograph on display in some Pall Mall club. What he had done amounted to a kind of petty theft, serious enough to justify going up to see him and asking for an explanation.

An hour later I saw people waiting with suitcases at the gingerbread station with its Victorian excess. The conductor, a fat man with enormous muttonchops, called, “Stanford, Stanford,” as if nobody had the wit to recognize the place. I got my kit down from the overhead rack and went along the corridor to the car door. Stepping out, I found the platform my side of the tracks deserted except for the conductor and two young men walking ahead of me to the north end, where a man in a brown suit put their baggage in the boot of a large car and drove off, leaving a cloud of dust on the windless air.

“Look here,” I said to the conductor, “I'm in a jam. There doesn't seem to be any public conveyance.”

“Go to the far end.”

I turned and saw nothing. The conductor smiled.

“Just go round to the shade. That's where old Tewksbury always stops. He'll take you where you're going.”

With that he blew a shrill note on his whistle that echoed under the eaves and a moment later the train jerked forward with a loud clatter of couplings. I shouldered my bag and started toward the end of the platform, walking against the direction of the train so that the faces of the passengers sitting next to the windows fled by. Tewksbury was exactly where the conductor said he'd be. One glance convinced me that I could probably reach the Pent faster walking. He sat motionlessly on the seat of a decrepit wagon, a countryman approximately the age of Methuselah, his hat well down over his eyes so there was no way of knowing if he was aware of me or asleep. The horse padded once, apparently a signal worked out back in the Bronze Age to alert his owner of customers. The voluminously clothed figure then moved. Despite the weather, his jacket was buttoned up to his chin and I followed the row of buttons to two red-rimmed eyes. When I asked if he knew where Pent Farm was he grunted, or coughed, or simply drew in a deep, rattling breath while at the same time motioning for me to get in.

I should tell you that I saw him again, many years later—not in the flesh, as he was certainly dead by then—but in
The Secret Agent
as the cabbie who conveys Winnie to Verloc. I can't help but wonder how long he had percolated in Conrad's brain, whether he was stored away as I was, kept in reserve for the right moment, or if Conrad simply sat down to compose the scene and was visited by the old boy.

The horse labored to put one foot in front of the other, a pace the driver obviously liked. Slow as our progress was, I can't say it made me unhappy. The hills were splendid with wildflowers, the birds sang, even the heat seemed benign. My need to put London behind me was more real than I had imagined. Before long we went up a rise and from the crest I could see the Pent in the distance framed by old oak trees, looking distinctly like a fairy-tale house with its bow
windows and heavily shingled roof from which rose that comical chimney pot. Neatly trimmed hedges surrounded the lawn that time of year, and off to the right ivy grew luxuriously over a broken stone fence. While I understood its attraction for Conrad, I knew that within a month's time the silence would drive me back to our imperfect civilization on the Thames, the very silence that Conrad found positively tonic, though I suspect his zeal for everything British played no small part in his choice to live as a country gentleman.

Tewksbury held the coins I gave him close to his rheumy eyes. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd put them between his stained teeth to test their authenticity. Satisfied that they were the coin of the realm, he drove off without a word. As I opened the garden gate and started up the gravel path, Jessie came out onto the porch, her limp more pronounced than the last time I had seen her. Borys ran out from behind a hedge wearing a floppy yellow hat and brandishing a butterfly net, pausing just long enough to say he was glad to see me before he raised the net high and brought it down. He smiled and held it up. Something with orange wings was beating against the cords.

Jessie gave me a hug and a kiss, effusive as ever. Conrad could not have found a better wife if he'd interviewed every available woman in England and on the Continent. He needed someone strong enough to stand up to him and put him in his place when he got too overbearing, but more than that he needed a woman with indefatigable spirits who could deal with his black moods. Over the years I must have watched her coax him up from that darkness a dozen times, talking to him in a quiet, patient voice, never making light of his afflictions, acknowledging their severity and the pain they caused him, but refusing to let him sink further. Still, I'm sure there were times when she feared even she could not halt his slide. I don't like saints, Ford. I don't like the idea of them or the examples that were shoved down my throat as a boy, the lot being vastly too prim and
inhuman for me, but by God, Jessie is my idea of a saint, both feet planted firmly on the earth and her heart big enough for any heaven.

She said that Conrad couldn't stand waiting around and had gone for a walk.

“He'll be home soon,” she assured me. “Put your kit in the upstairs bedroom and I'll start tea. He's been lonely, Jack. He just beamed when your letter came.”

I was glad for her invitation because I needed to get hold of myself. I was there under false pretenses. The fragment of truth in what I had told them about needing to get away from the city couldn't hide the fact that I had omitted my real purpose. Had I known what was going to happen as a consequence I would have laid it out in my letter.

After hanging up my clothes and opening the dormer window to let in some fresh air, I lay down and dozed off only to be wakened by the sound of the back door opening with a bang. Conrad's voice filled the kitchen with a tirade against the neighbor's dog. Jessie said something and he boomed, “Where is he?”

I hurried downstairs and found him bent over, examining the torn left pant leg of his brown tweed suit. He looked up and a huge smile spread over his face. We shook hands and then stood back and looked at each other.

“You look fit enough for a trip round the Cape,” I said.

“No thanks to that damned Burke's hound. It tried to rip off my leg. But I wouldn't mind a voyage. A good little ship, a decent crew. Exactly what I need. Come, you much be parched.”

I was splendid, Ford, hiding what brought me up as well as an actor does, whatever personal sorrows may be dogging him when he steps onstage. We went out to the garden, where Jessie had set up a table in the shade of a tree near the hedge with tea and a pile of sweet buns still steaming from the oven. No sooner did we sit down
than I was assailed by second thoughts and started worrying about bringing up things that would embarrass him if not cause outright pain. It wasn't as if I had been hurt or humiliated, not at all, and I really didn't feel proprietary about the stories. It was beginning to feel damned uncomfortable when Borys came running across the lawn and skidded to a stop in front of his father, handing over a jar that contained two butterflies.

“Look, Papa,” he said breathlessly, “are they rare?”

Conrad raised the jar up to the light.

“Rare, but not too rare.”

As he named their genus and species, along with something of their migration habits, I remembered Stein (Viereck) taking on the role of lepidopterist, telling Marlow that Jim was like one of the rarest of those creatures who made their home in the jungle and probably shared its fate, a beautiful passage in
Lord Jim
that captures Jim's ephemeral nature and has absolutely nothing to do with either Viereck or me. The moment fitted perfectly with the mixing of times and places, people and characters I had recollected on the train, the line separating the invented and the real dimming even more, or rather seeming to fray like a rope being pulled in two directions.

Once Conrad finished his explanation Borys grabbed his net and promised to find something his father had never seen. As I watched him run along the hedge I decided to put off mentioning the books until later. He asked about my plans and I said that I had just signed on with a firm in Amsterdam and would be abroad for quite some time.

“I miss the sea,” he said. “I know I can't wear two hats and I'm not complaining. I was meant to write if I was meant for anything. That's not to say I've forgotten the sharpness the sea gives to life, the excitement. I never will. None of that here,” he said, gesturing toward the fields, “though I do have interesting neighbors. Come along and take a look at my garden.”

As we followed the path between the house and the oak trees he told me that he had seen you at Aldington a few days earlier. There had been a dinner party and Kipling had made a fool of himself as usual with his rant about the white man's burden. Wells was becoming increasingly intolerable, a development which made Conrad feel even more grateful that you and James and Crane lived near by. He mentioned a piece in the literary supplement that was critical of James and launched into a spirited defense, going on about how tradition-bound Europeans were and how all James had done was to expose that.