“Did I really shoot a gull?”
“You shot her till she fainted.”
“Did I drag your statue out and shoot you?”
“Picked me out carefully.”
“It was the best thing I’ve done, but I haven’t hurt you, boy?”
“You threw Scylla. She cut her head on a stone. Carston took an arrow out below her left breast. She was pinned to me by her shoulder—”
“Getting kick out of it, aren’t you?”
“Go and see.”
“And face that dumb fool Carston.”
“Look at Scylla.”
“Where’s the cup?”
“You put it in the well.”
Silence, while Picus watched the bright, brown close-set eyes turn this way and that. Never into his eyes. Never out to sea. Over his shoulder, at the fish-bones, into his cup.
“It’s a clever way of breaking things up. You say that you came later?”
“An hour. You were lying in the studio. You were saying something about worms and time and cups. I think you know, that you actually did a dream.”
His simplicity amazed Clarence: made him thoughtful.
“I am sure that you’re letting Carston take you in. You’re simple sometimes, bless you. You weren’t there. He found me a bit off my head and I went in and fell asleep. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember yesterday.
“I’m going up. You might stay and see if that net we broke is mended and follow. I even think you believe this, but it is more likely to be some revenge of Carston’s—”
It was suggested to him, fretfully and quite unjustly, that Carston could neither improvise a bow and arrows, throw a leaded cord, or hit a sitting haystack. And it was painful on their present undertaking to see Clarence stride off to clear up the affair. Picus fidgeted about the beach and threw unsuccessful ducks and drakes. One suddenly skimmed out. So much for that.
Clarence followed him full of anger, full of breakfast up the hill. Then, as he climbed and felt the strengthening sun, of a kind of catchy fear. The nut was shrinking. How was he to persuade Carston that they had not been entertained by a sadist? The business faintly excited him. With each step he felt the sun’s menace. He wanted to be alone under the cool thatch and whittle at a mazer he was making to hold punch at parties. A present for Scylla.
The night before Carston had thrown out the half-plucked gull over the cliff. It had caught on a bush, and almost at the door Clarence saw the torn white rags. He stood a long time while the dew dried.
“I suppose I thought she was the bird.” The whole memory came back. The nut in his head dissolved like a drop of wax. His skull filled with pure memory.
The figure he had cut with his excuses. How save his reputation for sanity? With Picus. With all of them?
What does one do when one has done a thing like that?
How act a repentance unfelt as yet, only betrayal by time, chance, magic, interfering friends, offending gods?
The gull, held on a twig by a pinion-feather, loosened, balanced a second, and vanished over the cliff.
“I must follow,” he said, “now.”
The sun had thrown his shadow to the threshold. Carston saw it and said nothing, afraid, helping Scylla to splash in water smoky with most of her host’s scents, combing the blood out of her hair. Sweet to have her safe and look after her. Then he heard her say, “There’s Clarence.” She had seen him at the cliffs edge. Carston held that he waited to be seen, but in truth he had forgotten Carston and Scylla. Carefully looking not down but out to sea. Taking a last pull at memories there.
Of Picus. Of the band he had grown up with. Of war, whose issues he had found too simple. Of their spiritual adventure he had not been equal to. Of the fool he had made of himself. The revenge his death would be. Not stay to be called Judas. And bring our souls to His high city.
He took a step to the edge. Scylla jumped off the divan, and with her hand at her side, ran out to him.
“Clarence, come in.”
She had hold of him as he had held her.
“What’r’you doing out in your chemise?”
“You know. Come in.”
“Get me,” she said to Carston, “a wooden bowl in the studio, and a green baize roll of tools.” She lay down again. Clarence paced about once or twice, and sat down beside her.
“There’s going to be an awful party over at the house. Felix is bringing home a Russian.”
He said:
“I’m not mad. No need to go on like that. I remember. The bird made me.”
“Did you think I was it?”
“No. There was a letter, and the sun and you know my head.”
“Look,” she said, and pulled off the handkerchief that tied her shoulder—“and my head is cut and my side. It was partly my fault that Lydia wrote to you. Go on carving while we talk.”
He did as she told him. Carston watched them. Like an idylclass="underline" a young lover making a present for his sweetheart, sitting on her bed. A harrow of wild geese with their necks out at flight. A border of fish.
“It ought to be set. Can you work in silver, Clarence? We might melt down that atrocious salver—”
Insufferable to be hushed like this. He preferred Carston glaring at him, wondering if he should get the gun. Picus came in.
“D’you know now?”
“Yes. And I’m not fool enough to imagine that there’s any apology or excuse. Or forgiveness that isn’t from duty or impulse. You can have Scylla.”
“I knew you’d take it wrong,” said Picus. “We’re not talking about beds and we know who we’ll sleep with. What you ought to know is—”
“Look here,” said Carston. “You’ve had a touch of the sun. We’ll grant that. Scylla has a fool female friend in London, fool enough to be in love with you. Wrote you a spiteful letter you lap up. Scylla comes down to explain it and comfort your feelings, and you try to kill her by torture. I know you were mad. If you don’t pull yourself together and try and face it, everyone will know you were mad; for you’ll do it again outside your home circle. The world won’t make delicate excuses for you, you spoilt, hysterical, self-pitying, self-centred, uninventive, incompetent son of a bitch.”
“Not uninventive,” said Scylla, “but you’d better try something else.”
“I’m taking you over to Tambourne right away. We’ll start now, and you can wait at the inn while I get a car. The old parson there is the company you need. You can come back to Gault, if they want you, when you’ve got your senses back.”
Picus nodded. “We are all for you, Carston.”
“All of us,” said Scylla.
“Don’t say,” he answered, “That if I stay here much longer, I shall be one of you. Because I never shall, and I don’t want to be.”
“Our house is your house,” said Scylla.
“Besides,” said Picus, “did you ever enjoy a summer more?”
“Hasn’t it been better than a movie? Leave Clarence at Tambourne and come over and look at Felix’s find.”
In his heart he knew he would not. Though there was continuity in this adventure, a circle like the design on Clarence’s mazer, a ring near to a magic ring, he knew that nothing would induce him to go back to that poverty and pride, cant and candour, raw flesh and velvet; into that dateless, shiftless, shifting, stable and unstable Heartbreak House. Not for a bit. Off to Paris on his own folk-adventure. In his last moments with them, looking at Clarence’s bowl, he saw the changes in things.