The Lodger: A Novel (25 page)

They both began to talk at once; then fell silent at the same moment, waiting for the other to speak.

“What did you want to say?” Dorothy asked.

“Oh no, you go first.”

“I expect the cab is here. You’d better hurry.”

Suddenly, a rain of tears was coming down Dorothy’s cheeks. They fell softly and copiously, stoically, as though without her realizing, they had been getting ready for this preordained moment.

“Darling! Don’t!” Veronica put her arms around her and kissed her tenderly, murmuring sweet endearments. “It’s just a temporary good-bye, I promise you. I promise I’ll come back. I’ll find a way, somehow.”

Dorothy, struggling for breath through tears, wondered if the words were prompted only by Veronica’s wish to retain her hold over Dorothy. Perhaps they stemmed from her innate warmth, or were simply crumbs of comfort tossed out to a mortally hurt soul.

Veronica went, leaving the house stricken.

Dorothy was engulfed by sadness. It was like being buried alive; a kind of panic. She curled up on the floor of her room, beyond tears.

Her life was ripped up at the roots. She had lost everything: the baby, Bertie, Veronica. Nothing would ever be as good, or as vivid, as having them. And now, there was no one who would be sorry if she disappeared off the face of the earth. The thought made her flinch. It was the truth; there was no use denying it. The pretense of living would continue. She had destroyed all her ties with people, but for what?

Grinding poverty loomed. She would go on, dragging herself though her colorless existence, alone. She was worthless, an encumbrance, excluded from happiness forever. To die now and put an end to her suffering would be a relief.

She hauled herself away from this thought, searching her mind wearily for something meaningful … Amidst the rubble of her life, something shone … alive. It was the pile of closely written pages on her small table. But their value was uncertain—her writing might turn out to be shallow and empty after all. She forced herself to sit up and look at the growing paper stack. The sight was reassuring; it was all that anchored her to the world.

Something at the core of life steadied and clarified. She wrote because she had to; it was salvation, as essential as breathing. For the sake of her writing, she needed to free herself from those who would shape and possess her. It was for this she had smashed her way to a clear horizon.

Nineteen

Dorothy sat on the beach at Porthcothan Bay, a strip of white sand enclosed by soaring brown cliffs. She leaned against a rock, enjoying the sun on her face and the briny smell of salt air mingling with the scent of her sun-warmed skin. London seemed far away.

The air felt like silk. Taking a warm handful of sand, she let it trickle through her fingers; it glinted in the sunshine, as finely textured as caster sugar. The tide was out. Splinters of sunlight danced on the ripples and sparkled over the bodies of seagulls hovering and dipping above the lacy shallows, emitting hoarse cries. A belt of mist hugged the horizon; sea dissolved invisibly into sky. Dorothy balanced her writing pad on her knees, intending to record it all. But finding herself strangely disinclined to set down a word, she simply sat, soaking up her surroundings like a sponge.

Why did being free make her feel guilty? Knowing she could move on and start afresh whenever she wanted; looking at people who were tied down with pitying disdain. But her freedom was tinged with a loneliness and despair that they would never experience. It was only by the pain of cutting loose that one could have the whole of life around one, continuously.

*   *   *

FROM THE WINDOW
of her room in the guesthouse, she could see the pearl-blue sky, with patches of pink fleecy cloud scudding across it. The small garden, backed by feathery trees, was bright coppery gold in the light of the sinking sun.

She had come to Cornwall to finish her second novel. The first had been published to glowing reviews. “Miss Dorothy Richardson’s work is like nothing else in modern literature,” the novelist Frank Swinnerton enthused. “It has a precision and a brilliant, inexorable veracity, which no other writer attains. It is bound to influence novelists of the future … Of its importance there is no question.” “No one could read this book and disregard her,” trumpeted
The Spectator
. “For the thing which Miss Richardson creates is as actual as the paper, ink, and boards by whose medium it is conveyed to the reader … the perusal of the book amounts to a sort of vicarious living.”

A single shadow dimmed her satisfaction: a grudging article by Virginia Woolf, Sir Leslie Stephen’s daughter. Virginia’s own first novel was about to be published by Gerald Duckworth, who was also Dorothy’s publisher. “I suppose the danger of her method is the damned egoistical self, which ruins Richardson to my mind,” Virginia had written. “Is one pliant and rich enough to provide a wall for the book without its becoming … narrowing and restricting?”

Despite the critical, disaffected presence of Virginia in the background, recognition finally seemed to be within Dorothy’s reach. She could not pronounce the word
fame
, even to herself.

There seemed to be an invisible balance in life, making sure that whenever something was lost, a new thing arrived to take its place … you were never left totally bereft … somebody or something making sure that life did not become absolutely unendurable.

She bent over the unsteady table, rereading the pages spread in front of her. The manuscript seemed somehow more alive than a book trussed up in its tidy binding.

The bond between herself and her work was closer than any other in her life. It was the source of the most profound joy she knew. The recording of impressions had become a necessity; without it, she was not fully alive. All roads in her life had brought her to it.

Some days, on reading her work, she felt it was good. Segments were more than good. The great joy and great suffering she had known gave her writing richness and depth, while her curious position on the edge of society sharpened her insights. But on bad days, it still seemed that she was not a writer at all: she was just a freak with a facility for words. Her task was quite simply to capture the essence of a woman’s life as it was lived; its minute to minute quality. To bridge the gulf between life and the expression of it. Yet she always fell just short; she feared her writing would never match the perfectly expressive novel she carried inside her head.

A low ray of sunlight coming through the window distracted her, bringing back everything she had loved in Veronica and taken from her and ecstatically given in return: a life lived by someone who was not quite Dorothy, in a past that seemed as distant as her former self.

Veronica’s presence was everywhere, catching Dorothy unawares. It was in the light pouring over the breakfast table; it lingered over the fine white sand and spilled out across the glistening billows of the sea. It spread across the deserted sandy pathway that ran down to the beach, hummocky and rambling and scented with gorse. At night, it sang in the roar of the darkened sea.

Sometimes the memory of their time together was a golden glow, and sometimes, especially during the dead hours of the night, it was a terrible unhealed wound. Dorothy would roll onto her stomach in bed, feeling her pulse hammering against the mattress. The mattress was hard against her breasts and thighs, yet it gave back no echo of a heartbeat, and she was filled with longing for it to be Veronica’s pliant body beneath her. At these times, the deprivation was almost unbearable.

Often, it seemed as though a part of her still existed continuously in the past. Lived with Veronica; the two of them lying eternally in each other’s arms, belonging together, as in the early days of their association. And this bit of her—a pure essence, a brightly burning flame—was somehow fused with the part of her that wrote. It was also one with the child who had stood in a garden in bright sunlight long ago, and watched in wonder as bees swayed from one blazing flower bank to another.

It was far more vivid than the grey present. She thought she would probably die with these feelings.

*   *   *

AS FAR AS
she knew, Veronica had remained with her parents the whole time, but she was a fitful correspondent, and long silences elapsed between letters.

When Dorothy returned to London, there was a note from her waiting on the hall stand. Dorothy tore open the envelope at once. It was a hurried scrawl, a mere couple of lines, saying she was back in London and longing to see Dorothy.

*   *   *

THE DOMINO ROOM
at the Café Royal was a carnival of color and noise. The tobacco fumes and hum of voices, the jingle of coins and the clatter of dominoes being shuffled on marble tables hit Dorothy and broke over her head like a wave. Briefly, she took in the gilded walls, crimson velvet benches, and huge ornamental pillars; the crowd of cheerful drinkers reflected in several large mirrors arranged about the room. But these sights were uninteresting compared to Veronica, who was waiting for her just inside the door.

In real life, Veronica was smaller than the space she occupied in Dorothy’s imagination. She looked radiant in a clinging violet gown, which clearly showed the shape of her body beneath it. Hugging Dorothy, she exclaimed, “I can’t quite believe it’s you, after all this time! I think I must have dreamed you up.”

“I think I’m dreaming, too.” Dorothy’s voice shook slightly. The feel of Veronica’s body against hers was overwhelming; it brought a heady rush of memory and rendered her almost tongue-tied.

“What do you think of the place?” Veronica asked.

Dorothy took a deep breath. “It’s so alive!”

Veronica nodded, her eyes glinting.

She led her past the clusters of patrons to an empty table at the rear, near the back door, which bordered on the white-clothed tables laid for dinner. They sat down facing the room, and Veronica ordered a bottle of champagne from a waiter. “This is a celebration. We’re going to toast the success of your book!” she declared.

Snatches of a song, rendered in an off-key but penetrating voice to the tune of “Greensleeves,” floated over to them:

Jove be with us as we sit

On the crimson soft settees;

Drinking beer and liking it,

Most peculiarly at ease.

Dorothy craned her neck to try and identify the singer, but he was hidden by the crowd.

That for life, and this for love,

“B” for Bliss and “P” for Pain

Not till midnight will we move—

Waiter, fill ’em up again!

When their champagne arrived, the waiter made a great show of opening the bottle and pouring the pale gold liquid into two tall glasses.

“To you!” Veronica said, raising her glass and clinking it against Dorothy’s.

The champagne was very dry, with a delicately nutty taste. Dorothy savored the sensation of bubbles exploding at the back of her nose. “My word, this feels decadent,” she said. “Champagne at the Café Royal!”

“But you deserve it! Everyone is talking about your novel; it’s a sensation.” Veronica began to quote: “‘A completely new and original voice, unlike any before heard in literature’; ‘Feminine impressionism carried to new limits’; ‘A finely tuned method of registering perception and experience.’ People are comparing you to Proust.”

Dorothy held out her hand, laughing. “Stop, please. This is too much for me!”

“It’s the truth,” Veronica protested. “And I admire your courage. It isn’t easy smashing convention and creating a new way of writing. You’re like an explorer in a new world—a true pioneer.”

“Am I a pioneer or an oddity? Whichever, it feels like pushing boulders up a mountain. I seem incapable of taking the easy path in my writing or my life.”

“You’re a brave woman. And funnily enough, you’ve struck a more successful blow for our sex than I ever did trying to get a vote. I always knew you could do it.”

Veronica’s admiration, her near warm presence and achingly familiar scent were causing a hot sweet stirring at the base of Dorothy’s stomach. It was intoxicating; she was like a bud, helplessly opening out beneath the warm sun. She gazed at Veronica, waiting for her words; mesmerized by the fall of the long lashes onto the softly rounded cheeks, the sweet full lips flowering for speech.

“See the bearded man in the corner, with golden earrings and a black hat and cloak?” Veronica asked. “I think it’s Augustus John.”

Dorothy cleared her throat. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. He probably comes here all the time. And look at that beautiful girl dressed as a nun, sipping her absinthe like a professional.”

“The nun is nothing compared to some of the eccentrics I’ve seen here.”

“Have you been here before? I know so little about your life these days.”

“Yes, once or twice,” Veronica said, vaguely. “The first time, two beautiful Indian women in jewel-colored saris floated in wearing live snakes around their necks, like necklaces. They sat down and ordered dinner as though there was nothing unusual about it … There was also a South American diplomat, who ate his meal with his hands—until a screen was put up around him.”

A good-looking man in officer’s uniform sat down at an empty table next to them. He had a fine head of wavy, light brown hair. He was decidedly drunk, Dorothy noticed, but he managed to keep himself under control.

“Tell me about
your
life, Dorothy.”

“Oh, there isn’t much to tell.”

“Surely that’s not true. I imagine you being feted from one end of London to the other.”

“Actually, I live very quietly. I don’t see many people. Most of my friends and family are dispersed, or busy with their own separate lives. I’ve taken a room in a house in St. John’s Wood. It’s something of a leafy backwater, but at least it gives me privacy and peace for my writing.”

“How is Bertie? Do you ever see him?

“No, it would be too difficult. Though I did hear he’s in love again, in his way.”