The Book and the Brotherhood (12 page)

Duncan had never entirely liked Crimond in those young days, he thought him conceited, and was irritated by his prestige with the others. He suppressed his dislike because he was a friend of his friends, and because Duncan was, even then, intuitively nervous of him. They were both Scottish, but Duncan’s Highland ancestors had long ago taken the road to London. When Jean took to admiring Crimond and even working for him Duncan began to be quietly a little jealous, but without any undue alarm. He was glad when Crimond disappeared from London and was said to be in America, then in Australia. Time passed. Duncan was posted to Madrid, then to Geneva. After this he was sent, on a temporary posting, to Dublin, before proceeding (as he was promised) to a coveted and lofty position in eastern Europe. Jean was disappointed at being despatched to Ireland, which she regarded as a backwater, but she soon found Dublin quite amusing enough; in fact both Duncan and Jean rather fell in love with the country, and went as far as to buy a tower in County Wicklow. Property was still at that time remarkably inexpensive in Ireland, and the tower (brought to their attention by a writer friend called Dominic Moranty) was an ‘impulse buy’ of Jean’s who discovered it, loved it, and thought she might as well buy it as it was so cheap. Duncan chided her, then when he saw what they had acquired, praised her. The tower, described in the prospectus as ‘probably very old’, made of old stones culled from some ruin or ruins, was, as various architectural features suggested, no doubt set up in the late nineteenth century. It had been at some point, perhaps in its original construction, attached by a rough stone and brick arched passage to a closely adjacent, indefinitely ancient, stone-built cottage or cabin. The wooden floors and cast-iron spiral staircase in the tower were sound, and both buildings had been sufficiently ‘modernised’. There was no electricity (which delighted Jean), but there was good ‘soak-away’ sewage with a septic tank. A pump, easily repaired, brought water up from the old well in the cottage. The previous occupant, now deceased, said to have been a ‘painter man’, had used the tower at intervals until fairly
recently and the interior, though primitive and now unfurnished, was in reasonable shape. There were fireplaces, turf for sale at an accessible village, and plenty of wood lying around for free. Jean envisaged a lamp-lit fire-lit life of elegant romantic simplicity, and set about looking for suitably rural furniture. The tower had a fine view of the two sugarloaf mountains and, from its upper room, the bedroom, a glimpse of the sea. Its living accommodation consisted of only two floors, but above those a round hollow crown rose to a suitably imposing height. Duncan was delighted with the place, and glad too that Jean should have this plaything to distract her attention from a proposed campaign in favour of contraception and abortion which had seemed likely to conflict with the niceties of their diplomatic position.

It was summertime, a dry warm Irish summer for once, and they took to spending their weekends at the tower, tinkering with its arrangements, sometimes travelling to buy furniture at local auctions. It was a happy time. The tower standing in its own miniature valley, now also their property, was surrounded by sheep-nibbled grass. There was a small stream and a grove of poplar trees, and a scattering of wild fuchsia and veronica. They had of course already done a good deal of pleasant rambling round the small beautiful country which they had hardly ever visited before, and Jean had already decided that they must write their own guide book to Ireland, all available guides being declared ‘hopeless’. They had visited Joyce’s tower and Yeats’s tower. Now they too had a tower which Jean said should be called Duncan’s tower. They were not however destined to enjoy Duncan’s tower for long. At a dinner party, Crimond’s name was suddenly mentioned. He was jocularly said to be ‘coming over to solve the Irish question’. He was going to write some long piece about Ireland and was proposing to take up residence in Dublin for the rest of the summer. Duncan never forgot how, on receiving this news, his wife’s face became positively contorted with pleasure.

Duncan was amazed at how miserable he was at once made by the idea of Crimond’s presence in Dublin. He felt almost
childishly that all his pleasures had been suddenly stolen and there were no treats any more. When, shortly afterwards, Crimond arrived, and settled himself in a flat in Upper Gardiner Street, Duncan put on a gallant, almost excessive, show of being delighted to see this old college pal. He introduced Crimond to all his favourite Irish people (including Moranty) and saw him warmly welcomed and instantly privileged as the dearest friend of already popular Duncan and Jean. Duncan had been finding his diplomatic post a difficult and taxing one. The ambassador was in hospital. He was virtually in charge. Relations between Dublin and London, never peaceful, were going through a particularly ‘delicate’ phase. The two prime ministers, plotting something (or planning an ‘initiative’ as these usually futile plots were euphemistically called), were under attack not only by opposition parties but by elements in their own parties. Duncan had to make visits to London. He was extremely busy and ought to have been thinking hard about what he was doing instead of having to think all the time about Crimond. Crimond had meanwhile moved to a flat in Dun Laoghaire, with a view of Dublin Bay, and had given a party to which he invited Jean and Duncan, and to which, Duncan being engaged, Jean went alone. He had already become an object of interest and seemed to be getting on very well with the Irish. His political views, in so far as those concerned Ireland, were declared to be ‘sound’; and the smallness and gossipy closeness of intellectual Dublin made it impossible for Duncan not to hear his name frequently mentioned.

Duncan, playing his ‘friendly’ part, had of course invited Crimond to a small summer evening gathering at the tower. Crimond was delighted with the place, enthusiastic, full of a spontaneous boyish pleasure which Duncan could see being appreciated by the other guests. Jean was explaining about the furniture, about altering the kitchen, about planting things, not a ‘garden’ of course, that would be out of place, but a few shrubs perhaps, and laying down a bit of pavement. Crimond was full of ideas. Duncan overheard one of the guests inviting Crimond and Jean to visit a garden centre near his
country cottage where you could get old paving stones, and statues – surely they needed statues, a statue anyway, to catch the eye and look mysterious among the poplar trees? Crimond held forth about statues. People became very drunk and laughed a lot. It seemed to Duncan that Crimond, who scarcely drank and was not very convivial by nature, was acting a part. The next day Duncan had to go to London. When he came back Jean told him that she and Crimond had visited the garden centre and ordered some paving-stones and bought some shrub roses and a lawn-mower. After that, during his absences, and sometimes not during his absences, Jean joined Crimond, in Crimond’s hired car, for occasional jaunts to famous places. Once they went to Clonmacnoise, which Duncan had not yet seen, and came back rather late. Sometimes other people were (Jean said) with them, sometimes not. Jean and Crimond took over the idea of the guide book to Ireland. During this period Jean was in a state of great excitement and high spirits. Duncan observed her face continually, studying it with an almost morbid intentness, seeing in it the joy brought to her by another man, and also her attempt to conceal this joy.

Of course for the newcomer or tourist, Ireland is simply charming. But it is also an island, divided, angry, full of old demons and old hate. Duncan felt this burden every day in his work and increasingly as his sympathy and his knowledge grew. It soon emerged, and this too upset Duncan who was ready to be maddened by anything which Crimond did or was, that Crimond, although he had hardly ever been to Ireland, knew a great deal more about the island than Duncan did. Anyone who engages deeply with Ireland must engage deeply with its history. Crimond turned out to be crammed full of Irish history. Duncan found himself forced to listen to Crimond airing his views, to a gratified audience, about Parnell, Wolfe Tone, even Cuchulain. Nor did Duncan care to hear Crimond’s republican political opinions ever more boldly on display, and his sneers at the British government, uttered in Duncan’s company with what seemed a deliberately provocative lack of tact. Duncan declined to be provoked, he
watched, he studied his wife’s face; and listened quietly to her propounding Crimond’s theories about Ireland.

Duncan, crippled by suspicion and hatred, made miserable by fear and by his detestation of his own abject and contemptible state of mind, was impelled to action by an accident, the sort of accident which often occurs in such situations. He had of course wondered what else Jean and Crimond did together besides jaunting around in the car and visiting ruined castles and garden centres. One Sunday morning when Duncan and Jean were spending the weekend at the tower, Jean had gone out early to pursue a plan she had evolved to dam the stream and make a pool or pond. Duncan was to come and help her after the breakfast which she would soon return to make. The sun was shining. Duncan stood at the window of their bedroom, the upper room of the tower, and looked out between the silky green flanks of the mountains at the glittering triangle of blue sea. The sky was cloudless, a lark was singing, a swallow was singing, the stream was murmuring. They still constantly said to each other when they were in bed: listen to the stream. He could see his wife below, her trousers rolled up, standing barefoot in the stream, bending down, then straightening up, then waving to him. There was all the paraphernalia of complete happiness, that happiness of which he so well knew himself to be capable: only he was in hell. He waved back. He turned into the room, blinking from the sunshine and the dazzle of the sea, and looked at the disordered bed where they had slept together. They had long ago stopped hoping for a child. They had been to doctors who had offered different useless explanations. Then he saw something at the side of the curving room, on the floor, a little thing or shadowy quasi-thing lying there upon the boards against the wall of dark slightly uneven stones. He went over to it and picked it up. It was light and pale and insubstantial. He closed it in his hand and his heart beat very fast and he sat down heavily on the low divan bed. He could feel the hot blood rush to his face and up to his brow. He opened his hand and held the little thing in his palm and examined it. It was a ball of what might have been dusty fluff, but was, he saw, human hair, reddish hair such as a
person, a man, might draw off the teeth of a comb, after he had combed his hair, and idly let fall upon the floor. No one came to the tower to clean or dust or deliver goods or mend, no one had a key to the tower except him and Jean. This was not his or Jean’s dark hair which he held in his hand, it was Crimond’s red hair.

Jean called from below that breakfast was ready. Duncan put the hair ball into his pocket and went downstairs and listened smilingly to Jean’s ideas about her pond. He ate a boiled egg and went out and helped her to move some stones and dig a hole and watched her delight as it filled with water. Later that morning he announced that he had to be in London for two days later that week. When the time came Jean drove him to the airport as usual. When she had left him he bought some sandwiches and hired a car and drove it by a roundabout route toward a place upon a hillside which he had already, studying the landscape, determined upon where there was a thicket of gorse and a fallen tree covered with ivy just upon the crest, and a clear view of the tower in the valley below. He parked the car and climbed the hill to his viewpoint and crept in behind the tree where the tall growth of ivy had woven a screen, and peered through the ivy leaves and through a hazy flowery gorse, shifting about until he could sit, leaning against the tree trunk, and see the tower and the bumpy track which led to it. He took his field glasses from their case and hung them round his neck and waited. He felt a hideous tormenting excitement. Nothing happened, no one came. The ivy was in flower and very many bees were walking and flying over the yellowish flowers with their spotty stamens. The dark powdery smell of the ivy mingled with the coconut smell of the gorse. By now it was afternoon. The sun shone, he took off his jacket, he sweated. His body was heavy and gross, he was short of breath and panting. Soon what he was doing became so loathsome to him that he had to get up and go away.

He drove the hired car south along the coast road as far as Wicklow and booked into a small hotel. The hotel had no bar or restaurant so he went into the pub next door and began drinking whiskey. He found the sandwiches which he had
bought so long ago at the airport and ate one and drank some more whiskey. He took Crimond’s hair out of his pocket and looked at it. Of course he had thought it possible that something serious was going on; vague speculation is life, positive proof is death. Well, he thought, postponing his certainty, I haven’t
got
proof. Jean and Crimond could have gone up to that room just to look at the view of the sea. But jean had never said she went to the tower with Crimond. He could not make up his mind whether or not to repeat his horrible vigil the next day. It might be better to go back to Dublin to their flat in Parnell Square. He did not imagine anything would be happening there. If those two were together it would surely be at Crimond’s flat; except that his flat, at the top of a terrace house on the sea front, was far too public. No, if it was anywhere it must be at the tower. But why
bother
, he thought, as the evening grew darker and the bar fuller, why go trying to find trouble? We’ll soon be somewhere else, it’s just an episode, it happens to everyone. But he felt, I simply want to be
sure
, if they’re doing that I
must
know – and then I can give up, let it slide, shut my eyes. Why should I let those two cripple me with grief? I won’t say anything to Jean now. I’ll just ignore it.

He began to feel self-consciously miserable and ill-used in a way which for a time brought consolation. He saw himself there, hunched up, a big dark man with a mat of dark crinkly hair and a big red glowering face, getting stupefyingly drunk among a lot of Irishmen (of course there were no women in the bar) who were all getting stupefyingly drunk too. He thought,
their
wives deceive them, there can be no doubt, and they are deceiving their wives, so what am I moaning about, we are all a lot of vile rotten stinking sinners, black as hell, liars and traitors and probably murderers too, who deserve to be exterminated like rats or burnt alive. And yet here we are, drinking together – what does it all matter – I’ve never deceived Jean, but haven’t I sometimes wanted to? And perhaps now I will too, we’ll each go our own way as they say. And as he heard the lilting coaxing Irish voices all round him he felt the soft flowing sounds getting inside his head and he began to think in Irish idioms and talk to himself in an Irish
brogue. So why should I mind now if my darling wife is a bloody whore, why should I worry what that fellow does to her, or want to kill him for it, sure he’s doing what we all do, vile beasts as we are, isn’t it better to be sitting quiet and drinking, and isn’t whiskey itself better than God? Men were sitting near him, beside him, jogging his arm and talking to him, and he talked to them too, and became distant and thoughtful at last and lurched back to the hotel and went to bed.