He pulled pyjamas from under the pillow and got into them, slipped on his dressing-gown. What made life rich was the urges you did not give in to. He spent many a fertile hour brooding on them — brewing up even finer urges that he did give in to. The knife went back in its case. He sat at his desk and picked up a pen. ‘If you give me your daughter’s hand in marriage I will send it back safe and sound. You know what I mean. But if you squeak about it to anyone beyond your family, I will cut it into little strips, and then into little squares, and mix it with my father’s linseed cake that he feeds his cattle with. I am not a man to be trifled with, as you may so far have thought. If you do not hurry I shall be only too glad to give in to my atavistic rage — after which I will fly to the ends of the earth. Yet somehow I don’t think that will be necessary, if we are sensible enough to open diplomatic negotiations immediately.’
He slept through the day as if it were night, intending to post the letter when he woke in the darkening balm of evening.
Chapter Thirteen
When he picked up the menu to order she noticed his damaged hand. He’d been pale and silent in the taxi, as if gritting his teeth for some reason, ‘Did you fight with that man?’
‘You know who it was?’
‘I thought he was a friend you were being particularly jovial with.’
‘It was Russell Jones. I’ve no secrets from you.’
She understood. ‘I meant to ask you whether it caused much of an upset. It was a pretty bad thing to write.’
‘There wasn’t too much trouble. But I still had to have a word with him.’
‘You need something over it,’ she said. ‘It might fester.’
‘If it does it’ll teach me not to shoot my mouth off. Enid’s right. It would have festered, though, if I had hit him.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘I hit the wall. Come on, what would you like to start with? I fancy a bit of salmon, myself. The sight of a swine like that makes me gluttonous. I was only hungry up to then. Gluttony’s a good feeling now and again: it means you haven’t lost your will to live. You can’t let me down by ordering a grapefruit. Have some fish, then a steak, and we’ll wash it down with champagne. I’ll do the ordering, and you just sit quiet. You aren’t living alone while you’re out having a meal with me!’
She spread her napkin. ‘I’m used to it though, and it makes me afraid. I’m getting into a routine of coping with solitude, and I actually like it. It’s the first time in my life I’ve lived alone, and when you invite me to Lincolnshire I become cautious of leaving. It’s like a disease that you don’t want to lose because it gives you a sense of self-importance, and that’s a vital thing for me right now. In your own house nobody else’s spirit competes for the psychic space you need to feed on. Sometimes I don’t think I’ll be able to live with anyone again. Don’t be afraid,’ she smiled, ‘It hasn’t altered my love for Frank. It deepens it in a strange sort of way.’
The Scotch salmon lay like thin paper over their plates. ‘We’ll drink to Frank Dawley,’ he said.
‘I wonder whether he’s drinking champagne right now?’
‘Don’t wonder,’ he said. ‘To Frank.’
She held her glass up.
Instead of squeezing his lemon on the fish he pressed it over his knuckles and rubbed them, replacing the dull ache by sharp antiseptic stabs. ‘There’s plenty of time to be alone when you’re in the grave,’ he said. ‘You can’t live alone while you’re alive. I suppose the baby will change that even if Frank doesn’t come back for a while.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘You’re more aware of yourself. Maybe after a while your personality would dissolve into a sort of low-grade insanity, but for a time you feel in greater control of yourself than you ever have. I think an individual can only exist if she’s living alone, though you’re not really allowed to live alone, unless you make a great effort. As long as you still feel lonely. Those who live alone, and don’t, have a dangerous kink in them, I suspect. When I stop feeling lonely, I’ll stop living alone.’
‘It’s twisty,’ he said, ‘but still not convincing.’
‘Here’s to the big painting you told me about.’
He lifted his glass and winked: ‘Cheers’.
‘Will you be able to drive back with your hand in that state?’
‘And paint with it,’ he said. ‘I’m always damaging my hands so as to be aware I’ve got them. It shows I love my work, at least. I feel in good form tonight, which stopped me punching Russell Jones the way he deserved.’
She cut into her steak. ‘I suppose all journalists are pretty bad. That’s just the way they are.’
‘Some have honour,’ he said. ‘Some don’t. It’s been my luck to meet one who didn’t.’
‘You know,’ she said after a while, ‘I still feel rather guilty about Frank. I was so shattered when George died, even though I didn’t love him in the least, so that I didn’t give Frank what love I really had for him. If I had, he might not have gone into Algeria.’
His laugh shocked her. ‘I’d never deny anybody’s guilt, or argue against it. It’s a precious thing that stops you going mad, the most precious thing some people have, just as real hatred stops you getting cancer. Still, I don’t think you knew Frank. Hundreds of years of suppressed idealism suddenly came up in him. He’s like a savage who finds an engine and takes it to pieces, sees exactly how it works all on his own, nobody telling him. He’s got the key to the universe. Or his universe, at any rate. Nobody could have stopped Frank. If he’d been an artist I’d say you should have argued him out of it, because no artist has the right to go and fight for the oppressed peoples, etc., unless he’s seen the enemy rape his wife and burn his house, in which case he’s got the same rights as any other man. But Frank was an ordinary man, must have felt before he went like I did years ago when I sensed some talent for painting. Nobody could have made me give it up, just as it would have been impossible for you or anybody else to make Frank forget his ideas. Love can’t do everything, sweetheart! It’s a good job it can’t, or the world would become desperate and degenerate in a day.’
She listened, handicapped when it came to replying. My love, my love, a pendulum swinging between bitterness and terror, telling the time till he comes back, moving across fields of primroses, wood-anemones, lesser celandines, violets, red campions, moths and seasons pulling me down. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, ‘to how long some people have had to wait. You hear about it and shake your head and say how sad, but never realise it’s like this.’
He called for another bottle of champagne, became troubled and soddened, mellow and complex, the longer they stayed at the table. The intensity reminded him of endless nights sat with John when first back from Singapore. He forgot Myra in telling her about him. As a shellshock case John had always thought he would die at the end of the day. He’d go to bed, after suitable goodbyes to everyone, which made them raw and edgy, with a copy of the Bible, a tin of corned beef, a candle, writing-paper and envelopes. When they fixed him up with his radio equipment, he recovered a flimsy sort of sanity. They lured the corned beef away from him one night and made a stew next day.
‘You must meet him when you come and see us.’
‘They’re waiting to close,’ she said. ‘Are you trying to drown my sorrows in talk or drink?’ She held his hand, and he wanted to draw it away, unable to bear the warmth and softness of it, knowing that her reasons for putting it there were not the same as his reasons for wanting to take it away.