The Green Knight (24 page)

On this day, warned of visitors, Sefton had put on the best table-cloth (a king-size sheet from Liberty's sale), and placed a white cyclamen from the Aviary upon the dresser. She had brought in an extra chair from the hall and one from her bedroom. Clement and Harvey had the sturdiest and most comfortable chairs. Louise sat at one end of the table with Clement on her right and Harvey on her left. Aleph sat next to Clement and Moy next to Harvey, Sefton sat at the other end of the table, nearest to the stove. The main dish (Moy's creation) was mozzarella and spinach pie with salad. Some cold tongue and salami had been hastily brought in for the carnivores. Then there was to be a treacle pudding and ice-cream (which was supposed to be for dinner.) Then Wensleydale cheese and (on sale at last) Cox's Orange Pippins. There was no alcohol. Aleph suggested running out to buy some but nothing came of that. Louise kept some sherry for visitors, but confused and bothered by her two self-invited guests, she found no occasion to offer any. Clement's news had been so extremely odd, she did not know what to think of it, and Harvey had arrived before she had been able to put together any further questions. She was upset by Clement and annoyed at the hasty way he had announced it all, assuming that Louise would agree to meet the mysterious survivor. Of course she felt curiosity, but she also felt anxiety and irritation. What was this gathering or encounter to be like, who would be there, would they want to eat and drink? Would Lucas and his ‘victim' make speeches? If Bellamy came then Moy and Anax must be absent, unless they could leave Anax with the Adwardens' housekeeper, and would Moy agree to that? She did not like the idea of this homeless stranger, she had enough troubles without
him
, he might want consolation, he might want money, he might
hang around
. Meanwhile, she was aware of Harvey being cross that Clement was present, he had evidently expected a private chat with Louise, and having forgotten it was Saturday was startled to find the girls at home and planning to entertain him. Clement was also on edge, not pleased to see Harvey, and in no mood for a jolly lunch party. The girls had already intuited some sort of chill, and it was already clear from certain arcane signals passing between Sefton and Moy that there would not be enough to go round. The kitchen looked out onto the small garden with its two trees, a birch tree and a cherry tree. Rain drops on the remaining leaves of the birch gleamed blue and orange in the cool clear light of the faintly veiled sun. Moy, who always opened windows, had opened a window. There was a soft noise of traffic and intermittent chirpings and fragments of song from the birds in the garden and in the many other tree-filled gardens. Heavy with rain-water, dark creepers hung upon the brick walls.

When they had assembled Louise had felt a nervous hasty urge to forestall Clement by telling the news. She did not want Clement to be portentous and make a drama of it, she wanted to calm herself by letting it out quietly, as if she could then see how little it mattered. ‘You know, Clement has just been telling me that that man Lucas was supposed to have killed didn't die after all, he got better, he's been to visit Lucas, he's being very nice about it, he even wants to visit us.'

‘Why us?' said Sefton.

‘He recovered!' said Aleph. ‘Lucas must be relieved.'

‘Did he really seem to be dead,' said Moy, who was very carefully cutting the pie, ‘or was he really all right all along and they made a mistake?'

‘I don't know,' said Louise.

‘When Lucas was away he came round to look at my place,' said Clement, ‘and he came round here once or twice and waited about in case Lucas was with you, of course he didn't want to say anything until Lucas turned up, he's very shy and modest, he's really awfully nice.'

‘Why, I suppose he was that man we saw,' said Sefton, ‘do you remember, Aleph?'

‘Yes,' said Aleph, ‘how odd!'

‘What's his name?' said Moy.

‘Peter Mir,' said Clement.

‘How do you spell “Mir”?' said Sefton.

‘M – I – R.'

‘That means ‘world' in Russian,' said Sefton, ‘it also means peace.'

‘World peace,' said Louise, then thought, that's a silly thing to say!

Moy shifted some of the tongue onto a plate and handed it to Clement. ‘Have some salad. There's basil in the salad.'

Clement said, ‘Oh good, so that's the lovely smell.' He was dying for a drink. There was silence as everyone looked at the various foods. It was evident that the news of ‘the man' was not proving so sensational after all.

Harvey felt surprise, but instantly returned to his own troubles, the burden of his leg, and now the terrible thing which had happened yesterday with Tessa, and which he himself had wantonly brought about. How had he been so crazy, so stupid, so
depraved
? And how could he last night have felt so peaceful and so calm and so good? That must have been the whisky.
Now
, when it was too late, he realised how valuable, how
precious
, his innocence, his naivety, his blessed lack of ‘experience', had been – and
what
it had been: freedom! Now, he was suddenly the slave of another person. Of course
that
would never happen again, he would never see Tessa again. But Tessa had stolen a part of his being, or rather he had forced her to purloin it! She said there was now a bond between them – but a bond was the very last thing he wanted. How could she keep her mouth shut? It was not just disgrace,
his
disgrace, but ridicule, something which would occasion laughter and be passed around as a joke, told to anyone,
told to his mother
. And even if Tessa were silent – and how could she be – he himself would have to tell, was bound to, was compelled, fated to tell, perhaps with terrible consequences. He had become a deceiver, a liar, and would inevitably blurt out some garbled version of the truth to Aleph, to Louise, to Emil, to Bellamy, to Nicky Adwarden, and finally and catastrophically lose his dignity, and lose his
honour
. Tessa had made a little speech about love and friendship, and even he, last night, had dreamt about some higher chaster purer love. But what he had done was to destroy forever whatever bond of friendship he had had with that strange girl, and replace it by embarrassment, contempt, disgust, horror, lies, fear. And now as he looked around the table at all these amicable innocents he realised how much he had now become an
outsider
.

Louise was saying to Clement, ‘Will Lucas come to introduce him? How are we to do it? It really is a lot to ask!'

‘Oh Lucas will come!' said Clement confidently, though he had in fact no idea what Lucas was going to do.

The girls, talking to one another, were now piling their plates high with salad.

Harvey said to Sefton, ‘Would you like some of my salami?'

‘No, thanks.'

‘Oh, of course you – I just haven't any appetite today.'

‘Anax would like some of the tongue. He doesn't like salami.'

There was a pause in the conversation. The silence was broken by Moy who said to Sefton, ‘Did you know that sharks have to keep moving or else they drown?'

‘Can fish drown?' said Louise.

‘Sharks are not fish,' said Moy, ‘they're more like mammals.'

‘Why do they have to keep moving?' said Sefton.

‘They have no swim-bladder. Fishes have a membrane which retains oxygen and gives them buoyancy. The shark has to get oxygen by continuous motion.'

‘How interesting,' said Sefton, ‘in what respect do they resemble mammals?'

‘No wonder they are so bad-tempered,' said Louise.

‘Moy will be a biologist,' said Clement.

Harvey rose abruptly and said, ‘I'm sorry, I must be getting along – ' He had just thought, perhaps she does this all the time with young boys!

‘Won't you stay for the pudding?' said Louise.

‘No thanks.' Harvey looked at Aleph.

Aleph rose. ‘I'll ring for a taxi for Harvey.'

‘Have you got enough money?' said Louise.

‘Yes, thanks. Emil sent me some taxi money.'

‘How kind of
Emil.
'

Out in the hall, the door closed and the taxi summoned, Harvey sat down on a chair. A livelier chatter was to be heard in the kitchen.

‘What's the matter, boy.'

‘Nobody noticed I had a stick today, not the crutches.'

‘I noticed.'

‘You said nothing.'

‘You are better?'

‘No.'

‘That ordeal you were looking for, have you had it? You look rather distraught.'

‘Nothing has happened, nothing.'

‘Well, we can't talk now. What is this thing of Lucas's?'

‘I don't know. It sounds gruesome.'

‘Have you seen your mother lately?'

‘No.'

‘You ought to see her.'

‘Everyone says that.'

‘Tessa keeps an eye on her.'

‘Oh – !'

‘Poor Moy, she wanted to sit next to Clement.'

‘He ignored her.'

‘He ignored us all. He is in a dream, he is overcome by some spell or potion.'

‘You perhaps.'

‘I don't think so. Cheer up. Here is your taxi.'

Aleph was in the Aviary, but silent now. Sefton and Moy had cleared the kitchen scene as usual ‘by magic'. Sefton had folded up the table-cloth, after shaking the crumbs out of the garden door, and returned to Thucydides. Moy had run up the stairs to her room, her heavy steps followed by the click of Anax's claws upon the upper uncarpeted flight. Clement had hoped now for a continuation of his talk with Louise, but it was not to be. They had mounted to her bedroom but only, he realised, in order to pick up his overcoat which he had left there. Louise led the way down again and they stood in the small hall where the space was taken up by the chair lately on duty in the kitchen and a much carved dark oak hall stand with a lion's face in the centre, two mirrors, and a great many knobs. Clement absently stroked the lion's nose, then gripped one of the knobs. To detain Louise who was reaching out towards the front door, he said, ‘How's Moy getting on?'

‘All right.'

‘I hope she's getting over you-know-what.'

‘If you mean her crush on you, no.'

‘Oh dear. Perhaps I shouldn't have stayed to lunch. Of course it would be Saturday. Do you think I should have some sort of explanation with her, I remember you said something about cooling it? Not that there's anything to cool as far as I'm concerned!'

‘No, leave it. She's a strange girl. She's full of supernatural fears. It will pass.'

‘Of course Sefton is no trouble, she just strides straight on regardless of other persons.'

‘Yes, she'll be a powerful headmistress, as Joan exclaimed to me the other day.'

Clement did not like hearing about conversations between Louise and Joan. Wanting to go on, he was about to say ‘that leaves Aleph,' but checked himself in time.

In the moment's pause Louise opened the door and said, ‘I don't feel at all happy with the idea of that man coming here to meet us, could you ask Lucas to explain it to me? I imagine there's no hurry.'

 

Back in her bedroom Louise took off her brown tweed skirt and her light woollen jerkin and her white blouse whose collar had for some time been distinctly turned up. She put on an old warm dress which had many times narrowly escaped being given away to a charity shop. She sat down on her bed. She thought, I will
not
let that man enter this house. Lucas and Clement are
mad
. And I will
not
allow any more parties after this one. I
hate
masks, I
hate
dressing up, this whole house is vibrating like a taut string. It was all Teddy's idea, he loved parties and noise and masks and fancy dress and new people. Well – it was all right then, in the big house, in the old days, when Teddy was alive –

 

Upstairs in her room, Moy was sitting on the floor watching Anax drinking milk. She had only lately discovered that he liked milk. She liked to watch him drinking it. But was it good for him? He lifted his long grey muzzle and looked at her. He looked sad. When she came back to him after school he wagged his tail and put his paws up. But she never saw in him the wild overflowing ecstasy of his reunions with Bellamy. She reached out her hand and he came to her with milk upon his furry mouth. She lightly brushed it away with the end of her thick plait. She stroked him. They were both of them poor fugitives. Moy had been making the masks for her birthday party. She made them out of various materials,
papier mâché,
cardboard, stiff furnishing fabrics, pliant tin, she fixed them together with glue, string, plasticine, sellotape, bent paper-clips. Guests who were invited to the party made, bought, or hired their own masks, but the family wore Moy's masks which were of course secretly handed round before the event. This year, partly because of the absence of Clive and Emil and the Adwardens, and also necessarily of Bellamy, partly for other more mysterious reasons, the party was to be for family only. Moy put the masks completed so far in a cupboard. She had put them on an open shelf but did not like to see Anax looking at them. She rose and opened the cupboard door for a moment. The masks were evil. She closed the door. Why were they evil, because deception is evil? Even the happy masks were bad. She thought I won't make them any more. She picked up one of her ugly flint stones and gazed through a tiny fissure into its glittering interior, she watched a fly alight upon her hand, probe her skin with its tongue, then wash its paws and draw them down over its bowed head. She laid down the stone, the fly flew away.