The Centre of the Green (13 page)

But the Colonel had noticed Julian’s first reaction of alarm, and now he said, “You needn’t go if you don’t want to. Nobody can make you.” A pause. “Charles had rather a good idea, as a matter of fact. He thought you wouldn’t want to be locked up.” A pause. “Thought you’d rather get away from things for a bit.”

Corny, corny!
Julian thought, wary as a fish at the bottom of a pond.
Get away from it all! What kind of corny bait do you think you’re using?
Nevertheless he began to swim upwards through the bland syrup of his apathy to examine the bait more closely. To get away! What else had he been trying to do, ever since the day of the
Buttertoffs
meeting? But he had thought there was nowhere left to run except inside himself, and now the Colonel was suggesting—what? “Away where?” he said.

“Abroad for a bit. Matter of fact, I thought we might go together.”

“Abroad?”

“For a bit. Sort of holiday. Spain, or somewhere fairly cheap. They all speak English nowadays.”

Julian mocked his father. “You want me to run away from my responsibilities then?”

“No. Not if I thought you could do anything about them. Chaps have to do what they can do, I suppose. Silly to expect any more.”

“And I can’t face responsibility?”

“Doesn’t look like it, Julian. Sorry to be brutal. Don’t blame you. Don’t really understand it the way your mother does. Just think you ought to get away for a bit. When things have been ironed out, you can——”

“Make a fresh start?”

“Yes. Start as well as you can, then see how you finish.”

But I needn’t come back
, Julian thought;
I needn’t come back at all
. There was nothing to bring him back to this fresh start, no need to make it—no need, at any rate, to make it here. Suppose, during this “holiday”, he could find something, some job, any sort of job—lose his
identity
, take a new one. You didn’t need much to live on in Spain.

“What do you think, eh?” the Colonel said.

No. It was ridiculous. Even in Spain there were work permits to be considered. And yet—to be a tutor? give English lessons? guide tourists? Not to stay for ever necessarily, but at least for a while, and to come back under a new name (somehow) to new people and a new job. He would go with his father for this holiday, and then one morning after breakfast, he would say quite casually, disconcertingly, “I’m afraid I’m not coming back.”

“What do you say, Julian?”

He was big with his secret intention. But he must not seem too enthusiastic.

“Eh, Julian?”

“All right.”

“Bit of a change for both of us.”

“Yes.”

The Colonel felt a sense of anti-climax. There ought to be more to success than this. He felt no nearer to Julian. What if it were all like this? What if the holiday made no difference at all?

However, he must not rush things; he knew that. Any sort of relationship between them, any sort of trust, would need time to grow. So he only said, “Suppose I’d better have a word with your mother. Thought I’d like to talk it over with you first, but of course she has to be consulted.”

Now that Julian had an object to gain, he began to become the Julian who would gain it. The grey tinge left his skin, and bones took shape again beneath the flesh of his face. He put away the
Radio Times
, and stood up. “Don’t worry, Father,” he said. “I’ll do that. I’m sure I’m better at handling her than you are.”

*

A light wind was blowing from the south. Above it, and in the contrary direction, the clouds moved in stately succession across the sun. Earlier in the day there had been a brief shower of rain; the lawn was still damp. It was not really an afternoon for taking tea in the garden. However, the Colonel had gone to a Sale, and Mrs. Baker had set herself to re-create the atmosphere of a childish treat—tea in the garden, supper on the rug by the living-room fire, the picnic, the day at the beach—in which she herself felt most at ease, being both giver and sharer. She had decided to have a little talk with Julian.

Two tartan rugs had been spread side by side on the damp grass; Mrs. Baker and Julian sat one on each rug, with the tea-tray between them. There was Earl Grey tea in a brown pot, milk for Julian and lemon for his mother, fruit cake on one dish and home-made scones
spread with mulberry jam on another. Julian had
compromised
between sun and cloud by taking off his
pullover
, but draping it over his shoulders with the sleeves tied round his neck like a scarf. “Aren’t you chilly, darling?” Mrs. Baker said, and Julian replied, “What’s this about sending me to a Home, Mother?”

Mrs. Baker set her cup down in the saucer, and
replaced
it carefully on the tray. “I don’t know what you mean.” “What has your father been saying?”—these and other sentences formed themselves simultaneously in her mind, but she kept quiet until she should be more composed.

“What’s this about sending me to a Home?”

“Not
sending
you, dear.”

“What then?”

Caught off balance in this way, she fluttered and tacked from side to side, for their usual situation was reversed, and she was without experience in dealing with the new one. She could attack, she could pry, she could probe, but she had not learned, even from her children, to evade. And now her judgement was further confused by the unfairness of it, when she had only been planning to help him.
Send me to a Home!
It was not like Julian, who avoided bluntness of speech, to put it like that.

“We won’t talk about it, darling,” she said. “It was just an idea I had for helping you. We’ll discuss it together some other time.”

But Julian, savouring this new experience, would not let the subject go. “We’ll discuss it now,” he said. “Wasn’t that what you intended? Wasn’t that why you sent father off to the Sale?”

“Sent him?”

“Mother, you know you did.”

Fractionally the balance had shifted, and Julian, no longer the inquisitor, in his turn explained and qualified.
Mrs. Baker sensed her advantage, and pressed it too far. “You mustn’t start thinking people are persecuting you, dear,” she said.

“You mean I’m going potty? Is that why you want——?”

“Julian!”

“—to have me put away?”

Mrs. Baker began to rise to her feet, saying, “If you’re going to be silly about it, I shan’t stay,” but it is not easy to get up quickly from a rug spread on the ground, and Julian was able to catch her hand, and hold her where she was. “Don’t go, Mother,” he said.

“Let me go.”

“Don’t you want to know what I’m going to do, then?”

“
You’re
going to do?” Mrs. Baker stayed where she was.

“Yes,
I’m
going to do. All by myself. At least, not quite by myself. With father.”

Now Mrs. Baker, who was already shocked by Julian’s tone of voice and obvious enjoyment in hurting her,
began
to shiver uncontrollably. “Are you cold, Mother?” Julian said. “Would you like my pullover?”

“No. No.”

“Father thought we might go abroad until it all blows over. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

“We?”

“He and I.”

A cloud which had been hiding the sun grew
translucent
at one edge. The church clock, a mile away, struck five. At the fifth stroke, the sun shone freely again, and a small yellow butterfly flew across the lawn and hovered over the tea things. It settled on the edge of the plate of scones. Mrs. Baker said, “Julian, why are you trying to hurt me?”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Mother.” Julian made a pounce towards the butterfly, but it felt the shadow of
his hand, and flew away. He pulled a stem of grass from the lawn, and began to nibble it.

“If you’d wanted…. If you’d heard anything…. You didn’t have to go behind my back, persuading your father to….”

Julian spat out the chewed particles of grass, and picked another piece.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to go. I told Charles so when he suggested it in the first place. We can’t afford it; that’s all.”

“Charles—— Yes, of course; father said it was Charles’ idea.”

“Your father had no right——”

“Mother, if I want to go, and father wants to take me, what’s the objection?”

“I told you. We can’t afford it.”

“And if father says we can?”

No answer. Julian looked at his mother, and saw
despair
. He felt ashamed of his enjoyment in hurting her. “It’s only for a holiday, Mother,” he said. “Until things are … you know. I’m coming back.”

Mrs. Baker shook her head.

“But I will. Of course I will.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then?”

“Oh, why can’t you understand? Why do I have to tell you?”

Just for that moment in all their dialogue—perhaps in all the years since his growing up—Julian felt an
identification
with his mother.
Why do I have to tell you? Why can’t you know without my telling you? You do know—why make me tell you?
He had so often felt that, so often wanted to cry it aloud. But now this memory brought not only sympathy with his mother, but also resentment at what he had so often been forced to endure, and with this
resentment he began to want to hurt her again. So he said, “You mean you wouldn’t mind if
you
were coming abroad with me. It’s because I’m going with father. That’s why you’re upset, isn’t it? You’d rather put me into a Home for good, locked up and under your eye.”

“No.”

“Yes. Did you think I didn’t know. All three of us— Henry, Charles, me—we’ve always known that. You just want to own us. Even when we were kids, we had to hide things from you—things that we’d done or people we’d met that we wanted to have for ourselves. You wanted us to have nothing that you hadn’t given us, nothing that you couldn’t share with us.”

“I loved you. I loved you all.”

“Loved! You lived on us. We were food to you. It was like … like a blood transfusion, when they stick that hooked tube thing into your arm, and fill a bottle with your blood. You had your hooks into us all right all the time, draining us, siphoning away love, confidence, affection, trust. And then when they ran out, and we didn’t have any more to give you, when nothing but bile was left, you lived on that. You never once let up, Mother. You never let us rest on a cot with a cup of tea and a biscuit, the way they do in the Transfusion Centres.” Julian’s
outburst
had made him feel dizzy, and he had to stop. “I expect I’m mixing my metaphors a bit,” he said, “but you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Mrs. Baker sat with her head lowered, one hand
gripping
a fold of the tartan rug. Julian’s words made a kind of buffeting in her mind like a wind, ruffling and
confusing
her thoughts. Only one thing was clear; that he did not understand. He
knew
, but he did not understand. And she did not know how to make him understand.

“Anyway, there’s not much point in talking about it,” Julian said. “I’m going with father.”

“Julian——”

“You might as well face it, Mother.”

“Julian!” Mrs. Baker kept her head bent; she could not, for the time being, face anything. She spoke as though muttering to herself, as though ashamed of what must nevertheless be said. “All through the war….” she said, but that was wrong, and she had to start again. “I’ve never wanted…” she said, “… never needed….” She tightened her grip on the rug, and tried again,
saying
, “I don’t make friends. Even as a girl, I never had more than … one particular friend. I suppose I was shy or something. Anyway there wasn’t any reason for people to want my friendship, or for me to offer. When you boys were young, I didn’t need friends. I was always one of the gang; do you remember, how you used to say that? I was just one of the gang. Not like other mothers. One of you. Perhaps you think I was just playing, Julian, but I wasn’t. I enjoyed all the things we did together, just as you did. Even the very early, childish things—making a snowman, reading from that silly rag book, toboganning on the silver tea tray—I enjoyed all that. I couldn’t do that sort of thing with other people, of course. But with my own children, it was quite acceptable. And in those early days, you never found me … never resented me. Only of course you had to go away to school, and it wasn’t quite the same in the holidays. And the time went by, and you grew up—all of you. I had to grow up with you … I grew up four times altogether; once on my own, once with Henry, once with you, once with Charles. Each of you … each had his first moment of
embarrassment
, when I wasn’t one of the gang any longer, when you began to see what anyone else would have seen all the time—a middle-aged woman playing at being a child.”

Mrs. Baker’s voice became more indistinct as she grew
less able to halt the tears that she could feel come
crowding
in behind her words. “You talk about me … draining you,” she said. “It wasn’t that. I didn’t make those
demands
on you when you were little. I didn’t have to. It was only when you began to doubt … to see me like that…. Then I had to have proof … some sign that I was still one of the gang … that you still loved me, accepted me.”

Julian stirred and shifted on the rug, embarrassed almost beyond bearing at seeing the gorgon’s weakness so exposed, but Mrs. Baker’s tears were falling freely now, and she did not notice his discomfort. For with the tears, relief had come, the sweet relief of talking out something hidden, something one has feared to say. “All these magazine stories about possessive mothers,” she said. “Did you think I’d never read them? Did you think I didn’t know what was happening? But there wasn’t any alternative. Nobody else could give me what you boys gave me. I didn’t
want
other people. I wanted you.”

“Father——”

“I didn’t marry your father; I was married to him. I don’t mean I was forced into it, dear, but you do what’s expected of you in this world, for all the talk about choice. You’re all sorry for your father. You think I … think I hate him, but it isn’t true. Don’t you see?—I treat your father exactly as you treat me. I even kiss him as you boys kiss me—pulling back a bit, because I’m afraid of the emotional demand I can’t satisfy. When your father came back from the war, he was lost. I knew that; I’m not so silly or heartless as you think. He wanted reassurance from me—just the same little physical signs of love and confidence and being needed as I wanted from you, and I couldn’t give them to him any more than you could give them to me. I couldn’t. Need! Need! You can’t give something just because there’s a need. All
you can do is behave … behave as if everything was all right … as if there wasn’t a need, and you didn’t have to do anything about it. You pretend; that’s what you do…. And your father doesn’t ask … not any more. He isn’t like me. He doesn’t cheapen himself by asking all the time.”