From her side, she had craved solitude, a moment’s peace in which to inhabit a world where she would find no one but herself. It wasn’t selfishness, much of the time not even dislike of him, simply a part of the desired tranquillity that true love should have been able to encompass, but which in their case it could not, since love of any kind hardly existed.
She realized that by occasionally severing herself from George’s zone of influence she had acted like a man. He became fretful and at times nasty because her detachment had robbed him of that soothing mother-like consolation which he had grown to regard as necessary and obligatory from her. When she was out of his mental area there was no feminine succour for his masculine needs. By his insistence on permanent comfort and care he had driven her into separating from him in order to avoid what she saw as tyranny.
For a man to withdraw his spirit into pastime or business was normal enough. She didn’t object, but considered that such retreats were necessary for her also, and didn’t see why she should not have them, though while she had been with George it wasn’t feasible unless the house were to be consumed by a deadly aura of resentment that threatened to wither both his soul and hers. No wonder he had tried so wickedly to get her back. It must be difficult nowadays to find someone to fill the place on his terms – though she imagined there might still be plenty to suit him.
Her son also, as was only to be expected from a child who screamed whenever she did not give him full attention, had been a replica of George in his soul, and the image of all children when it came to dominating the mother. They had left her no way out except to find a corner into which she could retreat, a golden space where the light was her own for the peculiar but deep need of the moment.
12
A line of intensely white clouds low on the horizon formed a wall of crenellations as they walked arm in arm along the seafront. When she told Tom about it, he asked why she needed this area of quiet and peace for herself. He didn’t disagree that she should have it, but wanted to know out of curiosity, and in order to learn something about her from the answer.
She couldn’t say, really. Didn’t know. She just needed it so as to stay alive. That’s all. There were reasons, obviously, but she couldn’t be absolutely clear about them at the moment. When she could, she would, he could rely on that. She preferred to talk rather than answer questions.
He laughed. ‘Take your time. There’s plenty of it.’
‘I will.’
‘Enough for both of us. It’s something we can keep for ourselves, or we can share.’
‘I like the idea,’ she said. ‘It has promise.’
He did the talking. He told her about the wireless officer on one of his ships who had been a British Israelite, and described the hobbies he had seen men indulge in to save their sanity and occasionally their lives.
She liked his stories. For a man who had spoken little to those he worked with he must have done more listening than most. He had observed without seeming to. In the presence of the garrulous he had only to scratch his nose, or adjust his cap, or light a cigarette for that person to set out on long and perhaps intimate confessions. It was human nature, hardly worth remarking on, except that everything was worth comment. Thanks for the education, she said.
He laughed at her. ‘One learned more by keeping quiet, but now, for obvious reasons, I no longer believe it. My talk is unlocked, you might say, though in those days I would occasionally nail someone, and let go a few distilled drops of myself when on shore. I was never an island: more like a peninsula!’
The horizon, a narrow black band from end to end, changed towards the shore to an equally narrow seam of blue. A light green stretched left and right at the beach, where creaming tongues of snowy foam licked at the shingle. Above the horizon a wide cone of rain came from the low sky, while to the west a dim button of sun prophesied more bad weather.
They walked on. She liked people who told stories, she said, even if they were liars. George always said he had none to tell. Everyone had something to tell. He simply hadn’t had the gumption or energy to say much. He was too locked into himself. Some people had to be shaken to the roots before they would open up. Not that she blamed George, though she had, she supposed, merely by thinking about it, and felt ashamed at doing so. He had simply not been born for easy speech, and it was no reflection on his intelligence.
The last shekels of sunlight rippled on the sea. Two ships seemed to have been there since she had first looked out of the window at Clara’s flat. He held her arm. ‘They’re not the same ones, though!’
Smoke from Shoreham power-station made a scene of beauty. She had no reason to blame George for not telling stories, because neither he nor she had ever spun them off in the bright tone that any normal person might have expected. When the spirit was willing all problems vanished. To learn slowly was always to learn too late. The only advantage of such learning, it seemed to her, was that it enriched your reflections when you later mulled on the experience that your learning had been too late to profit by.
There was never any reason not to scintillate, not to say something, at least. Her head ached? What if it did? She was deathly tired? Poor thing! She hated him? No excuse, either, unless you hated yourself as well. If you lived together fifty years and hated one another like hemlock-and-pumice-stone there was no reason not to amuse – unless you hated yourself more than you couldn’t stand him. Interesting to see that what had gone wrong was lack of energy, congenital self-hatred, a dose of self-pity, a proneness to self-ruination. What was the point? You learned slowly, or not at all. But she wished she had learned more quickly than she had.
She had fallen into the man-trap again, because didn’t you, after all, have to protect your own silence, safeguard your own personal and particular retreat so as not to go totally insane when you couldn’t stand even yourself a moment longer? Hadn’t a man that feeling as well? What one craved, the other must also, in which case if she and Tom lived together, and loved each other, then the treaty to be alone whenever they felt like it should be ratified from the start.
He needed his silences for reading and study. He sat for hours with books and papers, and when she spoke she felt she was taking him out of some weird dreamscape that he cared to inhabit alone. She loved the fact that, being in it, he did not mind that she at the moment was not, though she would sometimes have preferred to be there with him, and occasionally picked up a book from his pile to read, after the battle to admit it to herself had been won. She was beginning to believe that what was good for a man was good for a woman, but that what was good for a woman was good for them both.
He never stayed in bed later than seven, even if they didn’t sleep till after midnight. He liked the day, and woke up so as to get the best out of it. He did a few jumps and press-ups, then spent half an hour bathing and dressing. She got the table set. For breakfast he liked boiled eggs, yoghourt, black bread, cucumber and salted fish. She had grown to like the same meal, which she took in her dressing-gown, and he fully dressed. They talked about the day that had gone, and the day still to come. When nothing had occurred, or looked like happening, it was amazing the talk that could be got from such pleasant vacuity.
She asked, while he filled their cups: ‘Could we invite Judy and her kids down for a day?’
‘Why not? Next Sunday, if you like.’
‘They’d love it. I used to feel sorry for them cooped up in that crumbling room, though she wouldn’t like to hear me saying so.’
He pushed the egg-shell aside, and reached for the fish. ‘The children wouldn’t mind, I’ll bet. We’ll lay on some food, and take them out. Be nice if the weather is good.’