The Sandcastle (22 page)

Nan was still holding her breath.
After another moment of waiting Bill began to say, ‘I realize that I have acted
-’
Nan gasped and drew in another breath. It felt as if she had defeated the
hiccups. She interrupted him. ‘Listen, Bill,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to make
a scene about this. I believe all you say. I’ve trusted you all my life, and I
trust you now not to act in a way that will make us both ludicrous.’
‘You don’t quite understand -’ said Bill. He was leaning back against the wall
and looking with a frown at a particular place in the carpet as if he were
trying to decipher the pattern. He beat the wall lightly as he spoke with the
heel of Nan’s shoe.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Nan. ‘You’re making marks on the wallpaper. I think I do
understand. You’ve got yourself into a sentimental state about this girl. All
right. There’s nothing very terrible about that. But whatever there is to it,
now you must just stop. Your own good sense must tell you what to do here and
how to do it.’ Nan found to her surprise that the words were not new after all.
The pattern of her former conversations with her husband was not lost. This
thing could be dealt with as she had dealt with all crises in the past. She
felt with a sense of relief her protective power over him. The nightmare was at
an end.
I can’t stop,‘ said Bill in a dull voice, still looking at the carpet.
‘None of that, please,’ said Nan. ‘You made this mess and you must get out of
it. Be rational, Bill! Wake up and see the real world again. Even if you have
no consideration for me or for that wretched girl who’s scarcely older than Felicity,
think a little about your reputation, your position as a schoolmaster. Think
about the precious Labour Party. This flirtation is bound to end pretty soon.
If you let it drag on you’ll merely do yourself a lot of harm.’
‘I love this girl, Nan,’ said Bill. He tried to look at her, but could not face
her stare.
‘If you only knew,’ said Nan, ‘how pathetic you are! Just see yourself, Bill,
for a moment. Just look at yourself in a mirror. Do you seriously imagine that
you could make anything out of a love affair with an attractive, flighty little
gipsy with a French upbringing who might be your daughter? Don’t make yourself
more ridiculous than you already are! If the silly child seems attached to you
at the moment, and isn’t just being kind so as not to hurt your feelings, it’s
probably because she’s just lost her father.’
‘I’ve thought of that too,’ said Bill.
‘Well, I’m glad you see the point,’ said Nan. She hiccuped violently and
disguised it as a cough. ‘Now you get yourself sorted out and stop seeing this
girl - and we’ll say no more about it. You know I don’t want to make a fuss.’
‘I can’t stop seeing her,’ said Bill. He was still leaning against the wall
with a sort of exhausted lassitude.
‘Oh, don’t be so unutterably spineless and dreary!’ said Nan. ‘You know
perfectly well you’ve got no choice.
‘Nan,’ said Bill, trying to look up again, ‘how did you find out?’
‘I overheard the children talking on the telephone,’ said Nan.
Bill jerked himself upright. He said, ‘The children know, do they - Oh,
Christ!’ He turned to face the wall and leaned his head against it. The shoe
hung limply from his hand behind him.
‘Don’t use that language, Bill,’ said Nan. ‘It’s not a very nice thing to
inflict on them, is it? At least the children won’t tell anybody. I only hope
the gossip hasn’t started already. Does anybody else know about this little
caper?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Bill, ‘no one who’d talk, that is. I think Demoyte has
probably guessed. And Tim Burke knows.’
‘Tim Burke knows?’ said Nan. She leaned back among the cushions. A feeling of
extreme tiredness came over her, and with it the nausea was renewed. The
strength which had carried her through the interview faded from her limbs,
leaving them heavy and restless. She knew that the misery was still there,
after all, waiting for her. She wanted to end the conversation.
‘Oh, go away, Bill,’ she said. ‘You know what you ought to do, just go and do
it.’
Bill stood irresolutely at the door. ‘Are you going to stay here now?’ he said.
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, go away,’ said Nan. ‘Go away into school and don’t come back for a long
time. When I’ve had a rest I’m going back to Dorset.’
‘Going to Dorset?’said Bill. He seemed alarmed. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you
stayed here?’
‘To keep an eye on you?’ said Nan. ‘No, Bill, I trust you completely. I don’t
want to spoil Felicity’s holiday. — and I don’t want to make people talk by
suddenly reappearing here. I leave you to finish this thing off by yourself.
‘But, Nan — ’ Bill began to say.
‘Oh, get out!’ said Nan. ‘I’m tired, tired of you. Get out. I’ll write to you
from Dorset.’ She turned over on the sofa, hiding her face in the cushions.
She heard Bill take a few steps across the room as if he were going to come to
her. Then he stopped, turned back, and went out of the door. A minute later she
heard the front door close behind him. Nan waited another minute, and then she
got up, went into the kitchen, and was extremely sick.

Chapter
Thirteen

IT
was Sunday. Mor was sitting in his place in the school chapel. Although it was
well known that he had no religious faith, he felt bound, as a housemaster, to
attend Mr Everard’s Sunday afternoon services. These functions were attended by
all the boys whatever their denomination - although in fact most of the boys at
St Bride’s were Anglicans. The chapel was a high oblong building with
cream-washed walls, somewhat resembling a parish hall. The congregation sat on
rather comfortable modern wooden chairs. The altar was a large table, decorated
with flowers, not unlike the sort of object that would be found in the
waiting-room of a progressive country doctor. The tall neo-Gothic windows on
either side of it were of plain glass, and outside in a tree birds could be
seen tumbling about and chirruping. A plain cross hung above the altar, and a
low wooden stockade, folded up by one of the senior boys when not in use,
divided the chancel from the nave. A sort of crow’s nest of light oak, to which
access was had by a pair of rickety detachable steps, stood at the side, and
served Evvy as a pulpit, from which at this moment he was preaching.
The chapel was consecrated as a church in the Anglican communion and every
morning something which Evvy insisted, to the manifest irritation of Mr
Prewett, in calling Mass was celebrated at seven on ordinary days and eight on
Sundays, either by Evvy himself or by the local parson or his minion. On
Sundays a large number of boys usually attended this ceremony; but on
week-days, except just before confirmation, very few turned up. Often, as Mor
knew, there was nobody present except Evvy and Bledyard. His mind dwelt upon
this gloomy rite. His nonconformist upbringing, still strong in him, gave him a
general distaste for such goings-on. In addition, the thought of Evvy
dispensing the body and blood of Christ to the solitary Bledyard was faintly
ludicrous and, in some obscure way, appalling.
Mor spread out his legs. He felt stiff and restless. Evvy had been going on now
for some considerable time and showed no sign of stopping. He had taken it into
his head lately to preach a series of sermons on popular sayings. They had
already had ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’, and ‘Too many cooks
spoil the broth’, while ‘You may lead a horse to the water but you can’t make
him drink’ was rumoured to be still to come. Today it was ‘God helps those who
help themselves’. Evvy had started, as usual, with a little joke. When he had
been a child, he explained, he had understood the phrase ‘help themselves’ in
the sense of the colloquial invitation ’Help yourself!‘ and so had thought that
the saying meant that God helped thieves or people who just took what they
wanted. Evvy explained this point rather elaborately. The juniors, such of them
as were listening, or understood what he was talking about, giggled. The senior
boys wore the expression of embarrassed blankness which they always put on when
Evvy made jokes in chapel.
Mor was not attending now. He was thinking about Rain. It was four days since
the drama of Nan’s return. Nan had carried out her intention of going back at
once to Dorset. Since then Mor had received a letter from her in which she
repeated what she had said to him. It was a rational, even a kind letter.
Everything had happened that might overturn his love for Rain: the sheer shock
of being found out, from which he had still not recovered, and which he had
thought at first could not but kill his love by its violence, and now in
addition the reasonableness of Nan and the manifest sense of what she urged.
Yet when Mor had found himself able once again to consider where he stood he
found that his love for Rain was still fiercely and impenitently intact. This
was no dream. The vision of beauty and happiness and fulfilment with which he
had been blessed, so briefly, in Rain’s presence, had come again and with
unfaded power. What he rather feared was that the shock which had so much
confounded him would have destroyed her.
In fear and trembling he sought her out at Demoyte’s house in the evening of
Nan’s second departure, and they had walked round the garden together. He had
found her extremely shaken and sobered. She had then reassured him by saying
that her feelings were quite unchanged by what had happened - and that the fact
that this was so proved to her, what indeed she had scarcely doubted before,
that she truly and seriously loved him. But she went on to say that there was
no issue. There was, after all, no issue. They had walked through the gate in
the yew hedge and across the second garden towards the stone steps. Mor had
said in his heart, there must be an issue. To save himself he would have to
impose upon her simplicity his own complexity. Only so could he win what he
wanted with the desperation of a perishing man, a little more time. He talked
with eloquence and subtlety, he argued, he used what he could of his authority
— and after he had at last drawn her into discussing the matter he knew with a
deep relief that they would not have to part. At any rate, not just yet. And as
they walked through the rose garden in the direction of the avenue of
mulberries the intense joy which they felt at being together overwhelmed
everything.
Mor had felt extreme relief at the discovery that the shock which they had
undergone had not dislocated their love. Now when they began to talk he was surprised
to find himself able quietly to unravel so many deep and obscure thoughts about
himself and about his marriage, things which he had in the past but half
understood, but which as he drew them out at last in Rain’s presence emerged
clear and intelligible and no longer terrifying. He talked and talked, and as
he did so his heart was lightened as never before. He was able, a little, to
explain how in the long years Nan had frustrated him, breaking within him piece
by piece the structure of his own desires. He was able to explain how and why
it was that he no longer loved his wife.
As he spoke of this Mor felt suddenly present to him the anger which was the
tremendous counterpart of so long and so minute an oppression, and which,
because in the end he had been afraid of Nan, he had always concealed even from
himself. It was a great anger as it rose within him, complete, as if the memory
were by some miracle retained within it of every smallest slight and every
mockery, and it brought with it a great strength. Mor bid it welcome. It was
upon this strength, he knew, that he would have to rely to carry him through to
what he must believe to be possible, an issue. Rain listened to him silently
throughout, with bent head, until he had told her everything - except for one
thing. In all his outpouring he made no mention of his political ambitions.
Demoyte had obviously not spoken of this matter to Rain, and Mor saw no reason
to confuse things still further by introducing it. This question stood apart
from his immediate problems and there would be time to decide how it should
relate to them. Later, much much later, he might try to explain this also.
Meanwhile he and Rain had quite enough to think about.
Sitting now in the chapel, and watching through the window the birds spreading
their wings in the tree, and hearing the distant drone of Evvy’s voice, Mor was
rehearsing what he had said to Rain and wondering if it was strictly true. He
had said that he no longer loved Nan. Of course he no longer loved her. But somehow
to say this was not to say anything at all. He had lived with Nan for twenty
years. That living together was a reality which made it frivolous, or so it
seemed to him for a moment, even to ask whether or not he loved her. On the
other hand, while his not loving her might not be important, it
would
be
a matter of importance if it turned out that he hated her. Certainly there were
times when he hated her. He could see her, as he thought about it, sitting
there insulated by calm and mocking superiority, announcing to him decisively
that one or other of his dearly cherished plans was merely laughable and out of
the question. Mor said to himself, of course there are faults on both sides. I
am a clumsy oaf and I’ve given her a dull life. Yet, he thought, I may have
failed to understand her, but I have at least tried. I’ve never inflicted on
her that terrible crushing certainty of being always right. When I’ve disagreed
with her I’ve always been willing to listen, always been ready to come as far
as I can to meet her. Indeed, he thought to himself, I have come so far that I
have almost invariably ended by doing exactly what she wanted. His anger blazed
up, terminating the reverie.
Evvy was still prosing on. When Evvy preached, he puffed up his chest like a
pigeon, grasped his vestments firmly in each hand just below shoulder level,
and swayed rhythmically to and fro upon his heels. His earnest boyish face,
shining with a benevolent zeal, was bent upon the congregation. Mor began to
listen to what he was saying.
‘And so we see,’ said Evvy, ‘that God is to be thought of as a distant point of
unification: that point where all conflicts are reconciled and all that is
partial and, to our finite eyes, contradictory, is integrated and bound up.
There is no situation of which we as Christians can truly say it is insoluble.
There is always a solution, and Love knows that solution.
Love knows!
There is always, if we ponder deeply enough and are ready in the end to crucify
our selfish desires, some one thing which we can do which is truly for the best
and truly for the good of all concerned. If we will truly gear our lives on to
God, and keep moving always towards that distant point, we shall be able, when
the scene otherwise would seem dark indeed, to perceive clearly what is that
one good thing that is to be done. And indifferent as we shall at such moments
be to all worldly vanities and satisfactions we shall know the priceless joy of
duty faithfully performed — for “not as the world giveth give I unto you”.
Often throughout our lives will the darkness fall - but if we are ready,
through prayer and through the ever fresh renewal of our efforts, to “help
ourselves”, the grace of God will not be found wanting. And now to God the
Father, God the Son, and God the bla bla bla bla. …’
The School woke abruptly from its coma and staggered sleepily to its feet,
drowning Evvy’s concluding words in a clatter of chairs. There was a white
flutter of hymn-books. The organ began to play the introduction to the final
hymn. It was
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
. This hymn was a great
favourite with the School. It had a jolly swinging tune and was good for
singing loudly. The boys began to look more animated. Then they burst into
song. Evvy had found his way back to the place in the right-hand side of the
chapel which he usually occupied at Sunday afternoon services. He stood there
sideways on to the congregation, with the other masters in two rows parallel
with him, facing each other. The boys faced the altar. Evvy had a serene and
satisfied look, as if the tremendous burst of singing were a tribute to the
power of his exhortations.
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Who like me His praise should sing?
Praise Him! Praise Him!
Praise Him! Praise Him!
Praise the everlasting King.
sang the School with abandon. As they sang, bent to hymn-books or looking
upward in the joyful freedom of knowing the words by heart, their faces glowed
with hope and joy. Mor reflected that in most cases it was joy at the
termination of Evvy’s sermon and hope of a jolly good tea to follow shortly,
but he was moved all the same. It was at such moments that the School
en
masse
was most affecting. He thought to himself, what a sod I am, what a
poor confused sod.
The voices rose above him in two layers. The hoarse breaking voices of the
older boys were surmounted by the bird-like treble of the younger boys,
roughened a little at the edges like unworked silver. Amid the concert it was
usually possible for Mor to discern the voice of his son. Donald’s voice was
breaking, and from its present raucous clamour a pleasant bari tone seemed
likely to emerge. Mor listened, but he could not hear his son singing. Perhaps
today Donald did not feel like crying ‘Praise Him!’ Mor turned his head
cautiously towards the rows of faces seeking Donald. For a moment he could not
find him. Then he saw him standing at the end of a row, his hymn-book closed in
his hand. Donald was looking at him. Their eyes met with a shock, and they both
looked away.
Mor stared at the floor. He felt himself exposed. His face was suddenly hot and
he knew that he must be blushing. The hymn ended. Evvy’s voice was raised, and
with an enormous crash the congregation flopped to its knees. Mor knelt
gloomily, his eyes wide open in a fixed obsessive stare. Opposite to him he
could see Bledyard kneeling. His eyes were shut very tightly as if against a
violent light, his face was contorted and his lips were moving. Mor supposed
that Bledyard must be praying. Evvy concluded whatever requests he had been
making, and everybody got up. Mor stood waiting for the words of dismissal, his
eyes glazed lest he should anywhere encounter the glance of Evvy, Bledyard, or
his son.
The thought that he would very shortly see Rain came to him now gently and
insistently, warm and calming. He had a rendezvous with her in twenty minutes’
time. He had asked her to meet him at the squash courts after the service was
over. This was a convenient and secluded meeting place. The courts were
strictly out of bounds to the School on Sundays — indeed, by reason no doubt of
their peculiar seclusion they were out of bounds at all times except for the
actual playing of squash. All games were forbidden on Sundays at St Bride’s,
although swimming was permitted, which for some reason did not count as a game.
The squash courts were thickly surrounded by trees and could easily be reached
by a woody path which led down through the masters’ garden. They were situated
close to the school fence wherein, near to that point, there was an unobtrusive
gate to which Mor possessed the key. He intended to pick up Rain at the courts
and then take her out through the gate and away. He had suggested the initial
meeting place so that he could be sure of a moment of complete privacy in which
to kiss her. He felt embarrassed now to meet her at Demoyte’s house - and he
was not yet in a state of mind where he could invite her to his own.