The Green Knight (48 page)

 

 

Clement woke, after what seemed, and perhaps was, a short sleep, to an instant awareness of the situation. He absorbed, as it were in one large gulp, the whole of the last evening's events. Predominant in his mind was the crazy belief, which hung there like a black object, perhaps like the cloud which he had (conceivably) conjured away from Peter Mir's mind, that somehow Lucas had engineered the whole thing. It
had
been like a duel, and
Lucas
had won. Part of all this was the hideous business of the baseball bat, and an image of Lucas raising it up to kill Peter a second time. It was all Clement's fault! Why had he taken it there, yesterday evening, to that place? Because Lucas told him to. Indeed, why had he so idiotically looked after the fatal object during Lucas's absence, and carried it back to him, like an obedient dog, on his return? Why hadn't he destroyed it or, given that it was almost indestructible, thrown it into the Thames? He had laid it down obsequiously upon Lucas's desk. Because after all it was Lucas's property, because it had belonged to their childhood, because it was an accusing reminder of what Lucas had done, because it was a magical object, fatally bound into their long weird relationship? Clement looked at his watch. It was seven- thirty. He thought, I'll go there at once. If it's
not
there it may be anywhere – in Lucas's desk or in a police station. Then he remembered the Rolls. He thought, I'll get rid of the Rolls first, then I'll get a taxi. He ran out, found the beautiful car where he had left it (no parking ticket), and set off across London. But it was the rush hour. The journey, which had taken scarcely more than twenty-five minutes last night, now took him more than an hour. He got lost at the last moment and spent time driving about among similar roads containing large houses. He turned the Rolls into the drive at last, got out and locked it. He dropped the keys through into the hall. There was a dull echo. Silence. He moved away and surveyed the house. In an upstairs room, which he reckoned to be Peter's bedroom, the curtains were still closed. Turning to go he looked at the Rolls and felt a quaint twinge: how much, if things had been different, he would have enjoyed driving that car through London.

There were no taxis. He found the nearest underground station. At the other end (not many stations) he had a little way to walk. Why had he felt compelled to deliver the Rolls first, to ‘get it off his hands'? He had wasted time during which
that thing
might be lying there waiting to be found. He hurried. He saw his own little black Fiat sitting there (with a parking ticket). The sun was shining, appearing intermittently between plump greyish clouds which were being bowled along by an east wind. There was a clear light. Some work was being done upon the building-site. The cement-mixer was hurling its contents to and fro, a small bulldozer had appeared. Some way ahead, beyond the gravelled path and the shrubs and smaller trees, the great Wellingtonias were visible.
Everything was visible. The place
was still there, present in the sunshine, instead of being hidden far away in darkness in the confines of some tragic opera. Clement felt sick, anguish squeezed his heart. He must find the thing, take it away and burn it, char it out of recognition,
torture
it. Holding his hand to his painful heart he moved under the dark graceful boughs of the trees. Here was the place, the little clearing, the space above it where the innocent clouds were now obscuring the sun. There was nothing there. He looked, he searched, turning over twigs and leaves and kicking the earth. Had he expected to find it lying there with blood on it? Oh why had he not come earlier! Where was the cursed thing now? He would have to keep waiting for time to show, or not to show. He decided to go and see Lucas, but he dreaded the prospect. He began to walk back to the road, taking a different, he thought quicker, route. As he came to a space of mown grass he saw children playing, laughing and running after a ball. Nearby on a seat two adults were watching them. A boy, aged about twelve, was playing with two slightly younger girls. They were playing with the ball, the girls tossing it to the boy who was skilfully hitting it in various directions with his bat. With his bat. Clement stopped. Yes –
that
was
it.
He thought, I must take that evil accursed thing away from those children. But he stood there watching and did not move. Suddenly the ball, a green tennis ball, came speeding in his direction. He picked it up and threw it back. The children waved to him. The adults waved too. Clement waved back. He watched the game. The two adults rose and called the children. Laughing and talking they all trooped away through the trees, the boy carrying his trophy with him. Clement followed him for a while at some distance. They emerged onto the road through a gate in railings, and climbed into a big car with a Belgian number plate. Clement watched the car out of sight. Then he went to find his own car. He got into it and laid his head down on the steering wheel. Tears came into his eyes.

Bellamy was standing in the drive looking at Peter's house. After making two vain telephone calls he had at last reached Clement who said he had been out returning the Rolls. Clement had also given him Peter's address. Bellamy had arrived by taxi. It was now nearly eleven o'clock. Bellamy noticed, as Clement had done, the curtains drawn in the upstairs bedroom. Bellamy felt exhausted and torn by his fears, and by the misery of not having been able to reach Clement. Now, seeing the drawn curtains, he felt horror. He thought, how am I now to go into the future, how will I be able to endure this dreadful thing which is about to happen to me, and the
remorse
which will torture me for the rest of my life. Oh God, why didn't I stay with him! What's the use of knocking at the door? No one will answer.

The sun was shining. He walked, hearing his feet crunch upon the rain-wet gravel. He stood at the door. He found a bell and pressed it. Nothing. He waited. He rang again, a long ring. The door opened. Peter Mir said, ‘Oh Bellamy, good, I was hoping you would come.'

 

Not many minutes later Bellamy was sitting in Peter's kitchen, eating ham and eggs, to be followed by toast and marmalade, and drinking delicious hot coffee. Bellamy had given up, together with various other things, breakfast, indeed just lately had eaten little except bread and tinned beans. He was now faint with relief and could not stop smiling and saying ‘Oh good heavens!' or ‘Who would have thought it!' The knowledge that Peter was pleased to see him shone about him like a continuous warm clear light.

Peter, dressed in trousers and shirt, his bare feet in slippers, looked younger, his curly bright brown hair which grew so smoothly down the back of his neck, glowing in the sunshine, his dark grey eyes luminous under his copious furry eyebrows. His high forehead was unlined, his smooth plump cheeks glowed like polished apples, his thick well-formed lips were parted, smiling, sometimes trembling with some concealed emotion. Standing at the end of the table and leaning over it he occasionally, probably unconsciously, lifted his end from the ground, as he looked down upon Bellamy breakfasting. He had, he explained, got up late and already been out shopping, he was so glad he had not missed Bellamy, but of course they would have met very soon anyway. The kitchen window was wide open, there was a glimpse of tall trees in a garden, all the windows visible to Bellamy as he came into the house were open. The sun shone on the garden, it shone into the kitchen – and it seemed to Bellamy that he had never before seen Peter except in dark places.

Of course Bellamy did not reveal his anxiety, now blown so entirely away and almost forgotten, about Peter's ‘sleep well' and the curtained window. He explained that he would have come earlier only he did not know the address, and how he had gone about trying to find a telephone box, and anyway Clement was away returning the Rolls. He felt, as he spoke so readily and easily to his smiling host, the words tumbling over each other with merry eagerness, I am
chattering
, I am like a child telling its day to a loving parent! As he watched Bellamy, Peter kept laughing, and then Bellamy laughed too.

Bellamy said, ‘You know, this is not very far away from where I used to live, only you live in the
rich
part! Why, that's how you found Anax – he was making his way back to my old flat!'

‘Yes, that was a great thing, it opened the door. I shall say more about this later. So you all got back safely last night?'

‘Oh yes – '

‘And Lucas, how did he get back, did he drive Clement's car?'

‘Oh no, he doesn't drive. He got a taxi.'

‘It was rather a – confused scene. I must have startled you, falling over like that. You and Clement were very kind to bring me back here.'

‘Not at all, we were glad to help, of course we were terribly worried, but – '

‘Bellamy, do you mind telling me what exactly happened last night?'

Bellamy had not expected this. He was silent, dropping his eyes and bowing his big head. He took off his glasses and put them on the table, and took firm hold of a lock of his straw-coloured hair. He had been so continuously anxious about Peter's welfare, about whether Peter was alive or dead, last night, he had not reflected upon ‘what had happened' or attempted to determine what
had
happened. He realised however in this moment as he laid down his glasses that he had
intuitively known
what had taken place. They had spoken beforehand about a ‘metamorphosis', a visitation, something like a miracle. He had for a moment seen Peter as an angel. It was as if his holy, other-worldly, body had been for a second revealed. He had burned and glowed. That was the change which had been, for a moment, too much for his worldly body, so that thereby he might indeed have died. This was what had happened: this and what this
meant
and would
bring to pass.
But if Peter himself did not know it, how could Bellamy tell him? He raised his eyes, dreading to see Peter now anxious, uncertain, relying suddenly upon Bellamy. But Peter looked calm and untroubled, gazing a little quizzically at Bellamy, someone who has asked a question to which he knows the answer. Bellamy thought, he is testing me.

He said, ‘Peter, I think you know what happened. Something extraordinary, something miraculous happened.'

Peter, still looking quizzical, raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh? Like what?'

‘Like the road to Damascus.' This comparison had only just occurred to Bellamy.

Peter laughed. He said, ‘Oh, that – '

‘You died and rose again. You became an angel.'

‘Well, we may return to these matters later. There is something important, not unrelated.'

‘What is that?'

‘You have not asked me what I have remembered.'

Bellamy had indeed forgotten Peter's words which he had whispered to him when they parted last night. He had forgotten simply because minutes later he was overwhelmed by the idea that Peter was going to kill himself. He now thought, what he remembered may be some terrible thing, something which may destroy him – he felt himself blushing and he put his hand to his throat. He said humbly, ‘I am very sorry.'

‘You see, whatever we may think about last night, it did bring about one of the things which it was supposed to bring about. And it may prove to have brought about the
other thing
as well.'

‘Please tell me what it is that you have remembered?'

‘God.'

‘What
?'

‘God – I have remembered God.'

This vast statement should have shaken Bellamy and, as he realised later, made him bow his head in reverence. But alas at that moment his instant thought was,
after all, he is mad.
He stared at Peter owlishly, his mouth open, as if something very banal had been said to which one might answer, ‘Oh, really.' Bellamy struggled for words.

Peter watched him with amusement. He gave the table a final shake and then sat down. ‘Don't worry, dear Bellamy, all will be explained. No, not all, much will be explained if we have time, and why should we not have time? I will tell you soon what is of immediate importance – for there are, after this – miraculous, if you like, return of my memory, things which must be done soon – and you must help me do them.'

‘I will do anything for you. But what do you mean by God, how does one forget God and then remember him?'

‘You told me that you wanted to enter a religious house.'

‘Yes. But now I have decided not to.'

‘I also have sought enlightenment, not in Christianity, but in Buddhism. When I was young I was wild and wanton, I was very selfish, full of greed, full of envy and jealousy, hurtful to others. Then I felt suddenly that I
must change
, I must change myself or die, change by dying to my awful self. I was fortunate at that time to meet a holy man, a Buddhist, now alas dead, and I spent a time living far away from the world – I will tell you more of this later – then, still following the Buddhist discipline, I returned to the world – '

‘But Buddhists don't believe in God.'

‘In a personal God, no. I used the word as a brief way of indicating a spiritual path.'

‘Do not seek for God outside your own soul.'

‘Yes. So speaks Eckhart. As Buddhists speak of the Buddha in the soul. As Christians might speak of the Christ in the soul.'

‘But you are Jewish.'

‘What is that “but” doing? I am a Jewish Buddhist. Judaism too seeks God in the soul. Not in a man-made man-like idol. Remember the Second Commandment. It is too often ignored.'

‘But, Peter – '

‘I am now simply trying to explain what it was that I had forgotten. I simply did not remember the years I had spent as a Buddhist, it was as if all had been compressed together and I was the same as the “angry young man” of my youth. I could feel the continual
pressure
of what had been lost, I felt it as a strange dreadful presence.'