“Annabelle?”
“Oh yes, of course, God almighty, Annabelle was their darling and she went to bed with Marius, doesn’t that make you laugh?”
“No,” I said.
“They all took it up, they all made lovely big jokes about it — that’s another of their tricks, you know — all being beautifully irreverent and jolly, and darling Father Jack mopping up the cocktails and Marius floating round as if he’d seen a vision and Annabelle getting bigger and bigger as she knelt in Church;—Oh Jesus Christ oh bloody Jesus Christ if it doesn’t make you laugh then isn’t it too much to make you cry?”
“Begin again,” I said. “Begin again about Annabelle.”
“I tell you Marius began it. Marius’s wife died and Marius got religion. Did she do it for him? Do you know? It doesn’t matter. Marius came to my mother and she took him under her wing and they got their tame priests with leads around their necks. Tame priests wear dog-collars, did you know? Then Annabelle. Annabelle always had it, you remember how she talked, but she did not have it like this. Now she does not talk. And I will tell you why she now has it like this, because Marius gave her the baby and that’s a mess for anyone to be in and this is her way for getting out of it.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said.
“You don’t know it, you don’t know it at all, I tell you this is the racket which has ruined us and the world. When my father got hold of you this evening what did he say to you? I know what he said, he said that I was in a muddle and you must all pull on the bloody old rope to get me out of it. Did he say anything about Annabelle? Did he say anything about Marius? No. And now who do you think is in the muddle. I who have never changed my creed for one instant and who have done my best to live by what I believe and who admit my failures according to what is left of my conscience, or Marius who sins and Annabelle who blinds herself and my father who will say what he said to you without having the honesty to say it to me and Father Jack Manners who puts his blessing on the assembly and bluffs them all into thinking that they are acting in the name of God? Who is in the muddle?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then tell me this, when you saw Marius this evening, did he appear to you to be alive or dead?”
“Dead,” I said.
“Well then, there you are, thank you, thank you very much, so long as someone agrees about something it is not so very terrible.”
He sat back. The food had gone cold, the sausages congealed, there was a feeling in the room as if devils were close to us. “But now,” I said, “now, with Annabelle, in the flat, with that priest, what is he doing there?”
“She asked him. He had to be in London and she asked him to stay. She is hooked, collared, you see, and they lap each other up like saucers of milk. They lick together round the rims of plates. But it is for me he is there. He is a good solid base for the tug of war. Is it presumptuous to say this? You will see what I mean. I am just so sorry for everybody.”
“And Annabelle. . ” I said.
“You must see,” he said. “You must come to breakfast and hear him talk. Annabelle? I don’t know about Annabelle. Marius was alive and now he is dead. I don’t know about Annabelle. It is quite an education to hear him talk at breakfast. He is one of those people who say how dreadful breakfast is, how it should be suffered in silence, and then talk for two hours. The priest, I mean. I can’t think about Annabelle. You must watch her while she listens to him. May I stop here the night? Thank you. I’m very tired. I can’t bear to go back in case there is someone sitting up for me. I love Annabelle. Sitting up like a Nanny with a cup of tea. It is kind of you to let me stay. A bloody old nanny goat bleating in his sleep. I love Annabelle. You will see what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. I went to bed that night believing in Peter.
In the night I found myself awake. I thought, as I had done once before — Time does not have to go so quickly as this.
I lay in the darkness. More had happened in nine hours than in a winter. I had woken, and the world was running again, and it was not myself who had changed.
I waited for the morning. Two things surprised me: one, that what had changed us had come from outside; the other, that I felt myself in a position to control it. I had not expected either of these during my dreams of the winter.
I thought — I might have been changed if this had come to me in my loneliness: Annabelle and Marius were more lonely than I: it is strange that they should have been lonely. Peter is fighting it. I can fight something which comes from outside.
I can fight it because I am awake again. In the morning time will run and I will run to keep up with it. I am awake because during the winter I was at least impervious. Now I can run more quickly than time. I can give to them, and help them, because the only change in myself is this being in control again. If priests have given me this strength by weakening the others, for this alone I can be grateful to them.
I enjoyed this illusion, of being in control again.
Father Jack Manners, at breakfast, said —
“Good-morning, Peter, good-morning, how do you do, well and what has Annabelle got for us this morning? she has the most magnificent black market in eggs, you know, really magnificent, for what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful, I don’t know where we would be without the black market, do you? do I think the black market is wrong? no I must honestly say that I don’t, I am afraid that eggs are one of my weaknesses, I remember once when I was asked to say grace in Sussex the old parlourmaid an admirable woman said ‘You should thank Mr. Goldberg, Father, not the Lord,’ and so I said that I would, and I did, yes, Annabelle, I know that that is a very old joke but I am a very old man and I like old jokes, Mr. Goldberg? no, I don’t know anything wrong about Mr. Goldberg, do you? oh dear, what a cross-examination at breakfast, I am afraid I am not at my best at breakfast, you should learn about the difference between morality and religion, is there a difference? yes, most certainly there is a difference I should say that there is all the difference in the world, or rather of the world, I remember a story told by Prebendary Dodds, he had just smacked his young nephew for some minor offence and a good woman asked him how he came to reconcile his action with his religious belief, and he said ‘Madam I am more concerned with coming to a reconciliation with my nephew,’ yes Annabelle, yes, I know that it is not quite the point, but you don’t know the good Prebendary, he is a very small man, very small indeed, at least three inches shorter than his nephew, so that it really was a problem, a problem indeed, I remember him as a young man doing missionary work in Lancashire, and a weaver of considerable size slammed the door in his face, and Prebendary Dodds couldn’t move away because his overcoat was caught in the door, so he knocked again and the weaver who had probably had too much to drink came rushing out and tripped clean over Prebendary Dodds and knocked himself out on the pavement; what? but religion is concerned with facts, you see, it is simply concerned with facts, while morality, surely, is not; I remember when I was traveling in a train during the war and a young lady started talking to me, it was interesting how people started talking at that time, and this young lady said, ‘Of course I myself am not a very religious person,’ and I said, ‘Neither, if it comes to that, am I,’ and she was very surprised but what she had intended to say, of course, was, ‘I am not a very moral person,’ and I am sure I do not know what I should have answered to that; I was too old, I fear, for it to have interested me greatly; but this is the point, you see, all right, Annabelle all right, that that young lady, although I am sure she would have been most startled to hear it, was a puritan, yes a puritan, she had got religion muddled with morality and that is what puritans do, all the time, and I am afraid that puritans have been responsible for the most dreadful amount of muddled thinking about religion, a really dreadful amount, you find their influence everywhere, in the most unexpected places, at the breakfast table, even, forgive me, but you must believe me when I say that they see the position quite wrongly, that they have done the most unaccountable amount of harm, that morality must on no account be muddled with religion; and now, Annabelle, thank you very much for the most delicious meal, I trust my lecturing has not disturbed your enjoyment of it, I myself find talking most distracting in the morning, there is a lot to be said for the monastic rule of silence at such hours, especially if you are a sufferer from indigestion, as I am, and now, if we have finished, Benedicite Deo.”