Success (29 page)

‘Goodbye, Terry.’

‘When are you coming back?’ I called as he started off.

He looked over his shoulder. ‘I’m not coming back,’ he said.

Nor am I, I thought, as an hour later I took my seat in
the restaurant car of the 5.15. Life is finished there. It’s just a damp house where I grew up. Let them stay for as long as they can. I hope they’ll be all right.

Now I’ve got the flat to myself for a bit — I’ll sell it in time — I think I’ll do some proper entertaining this winter. Have you heard? Terence Service is entertaining these days. He didn’t used to be, but he is now. There are people I can ask round. Friends from the Night School. All Veale’s boys at the office — some rationalization that was: there are twice as many Sellers as there ever were before; no one seems to mind, though, and we all get lots of money. There are even a couple of girls I can ring up now and take out and go to bed with. I fucked Jan, for instance. It was okay — with myself in sparkling form, both athletic and pitiless — but nothing special.

The train bombed on, through fields wedged by advancing shadows. The countryside gives me the horrors these days: I long for the reassurance of underground stations, streets, tramps and pubs. I waved for a drink. I lit a cigarette. I uncrossed my legs to accommodate the great hydraulic erection which trains always give me whether I need them or not. I smiled.

The machine pounds along on slick silvery rails. I squint down the unravelling track, on the look-out for London. I sip my drink. I’m going to be all right.

I’m cold. This old rag keeps nothing out. (It looks nasty, too.) I fasten it up all the time, but that only reminds me how poorly protected I am.

I’m walking east, behind the house, towards the D-Pond (the D-Pond isn’t in our land any more. A yid owns it now, but you’re still allowed to go there). The grass on the lawns is rank and knotted, smelling faintly of dirt and cheap scent. In the overhung pathways by the abandoned
rose-garden the air seems dark suddenly and I want to run back to the house — but when I re-emerge, and climb over the stile into the sloping field, I sense that the day still has some life in it. The sky is clear and colourful. The shepherds are delighted by what they see.

I’m not going back. To what, anyway? I’m not going back to spend my life peeing in kitchens. Ursula has gone. (Papa has gone.) And now Terry has gone too. I hope he comes into his own at last. This was the part he was meant for, the stage at which his life would begin to be good (he hated all the other bits). Not me, though. I can help mother — there are still some things left to run (God, I hope she can afford me). This will just have to do for the time being. I’m not going back. I’m going to stay out here, where nothing is frightening.

I’m cold. Dew is falling. In the distance, to my left beyond the Indian file of silver birches, the railway line runs on its banked mound. Something’s coming. I pause as a smart blue train streams by. I look down to see that my hand is waving childishly. How absurd. Why? Always wave to trains, my nanny or my mother or my grandmother said. I remember now. Someone nice might see you and wave back.

I’m entering the woods that gird the water (I used to play there as a boy). The D-Pond glistens whitely, two hundred yards away, through the lattice of bark and darkness. It really is dark. I pause again. Can I get there and back before nightfall? The woods are drenched, dripping with dreams and death. A wind blows. The trees attempt to shake their shoulders dry. Why won’t the wind let the leaves alone? The lake is trying to warn me — danger in the streets of the trees. The wood is fizzing. A log rolls over on to its back. One bird sings.

I stand behind the row of birches. I’m cold — I want to shiver and sob. I look up. Something’s coming. Oh, go
away
. Against the hell of sunset the branches bend and break. The wind will never cease to craze the frightening leaves.