‘There’s no such thing as square one for us,’ said Richard.
‘I don’t know what you mean by that,’ Handley said, ‘but in the meantime let’s get rid of this pornographic muck.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Her hand was firm. There was no tremor in her arm.
Nevertheless, he pushed the gun aside: ‘You may be a dedicated revolutionary, but I’m a priest.’
‘A failed priest,’ she mocked, lowering the gun.
‘That makes me stronger,’ he said softly, ‘and if you threaten me again, or otherwise play around, I’ll kick you to death. I hate violence when it comes too close, or when it threatens innocent people.’
He reached to take it, but she backed away. ‘I’ve used guns before. I’ll shoot.’
She would. His icy lack of fear had gone, and the present real danger made him wonder if she intended to kill him rather than Dawley. All he had to do was explain that the notebooks were in Dawley’s caravan, but then she would guess he had put them there, and so might kill him just the same. He followed his usual course of not speaking, of standing in his own easy air of stubbornness that he was too lazy to break through.
She put the gun into her handbag, the brittle stare gone from her eyes. She shook her head slowly. ‘You were quite brave.’
‘That’s brain damage, not courage. You’d have been doing me a favour if you’d blown my head off. One problem less.’
She seemed about to weep. ‘You haven’t got much fear, so you can’t love anybody, either.’
He felt safe again, so decided to be on his guard. Always expect the unexpected. She wondered why he didn’t try to get the gun from her, since he’d wanted it so much.
She was mistaken: he hadn’t been brave when she put the gun at his face, simply too stunned to react. There was more of his father in him than he supposed, but also much else that he didn’t yet know about.
He wouldn’t take the gun from her because whatever she did with it would cause the final smash of the community, and he wanted to see what was in her mind. Icy or not, he still had a massive interest in life. He was often troubled at his inability to use this interest for the moral good of himself and others, but the gratification he got from it was sufficient to conceal his uneasiness. He’d always said that until the day came that proved there was more advantage to the world in good than bad, he’d see no reason to alter.
Yet he was already at the mercy of chemical change — without knowing why. And because the reason for it wasn’t instantaneously supplied by his intuition he felt suddenly smaller to himself. He smiled, and acknowledged his understanding. The end of the beginning was on him because he saw it as undeniable — looking at Maricarmen who waited for him to speak — that if any good was to be done at all then he would have to take the first step towards doing it. If you perceived something bad you immediately accepted a moral responsibility to make it good. If you didn’t, you weren’t human. Evil seemed inanimate and could do nothing but stay devilish because it would not move. Good was mobility, perception, life, a desire to move towards evil and overcome it. Evil was an anchored bigotry, and lack of perception. Good was a far-seeing sensibility that could spread everywhere. He knew it wasn’t true, but thought one should try to make it so. He loved himself for becoming normal.
He said: ‘I still think you ought to give me that gun. It’ll be better for all of us, in the end.’
He was aware of self-sacrifice in demanding it, for if she gave it to him no evil would be done, which was good, but then there’d be no smash of this godless and revolutionary community. He began to see the futility of calculating too many moves ahead, knowing that the immediate peril had to be dealt with because that was the only one for which you could take on responsibility.
These speculations calmed him. He felt light of weight, and somehow wise, as if he’d grown older in the last hour and had decided to live up to it.
‘Come on, my love,’ he said, putting concern and tenderness into his voice. ‘Hand it over.’
‘I have something to do with it, first.’
‘Don’t.’
‘You’re a child,’ she said. They were all children, she thought, these easy-going yet close-hearted islanders who only want to be left alone. They hadn’t had a civil war or a revolution for three hundred years. They had become rotten with safety.
‘I wouldn’t be sure,’ he said. ‘Not that I would mind being a child. A child can grow up, after all. A big advantage, if it can survive.’
‘The English are a nation of survivors, and you belong to it with all your heart!’
‘Shit!’ he cried angrily. ‘Don’t confuse me with the Englsih! I’m not a bloody Englishman. I’m me, and nobody else. I’m responsible to me and to God alone, not a bloody nation or a bloody king or a bloody queen, or even a bloody party or a bloody president.’
He felt foolish whenever he ceased to be calm, yet he also enjoyed the swing of his own exclamations, as if he were more himself.
‘It’s an excuse for selfishness.’
‘I know I love you,’ he said. ‘And that’s something.’
‘I can’t feel it from you.’ She stood by the door, as far away from him as possible.
‘Leave Dawley alone. He’s innocent as far as Shelley is concerned. Nobody in my family blamed him for John’s death, though I suppose a case could be made out for it by someone like you. Blame fate. Blame God, if you like. Do you think Shelley would want you to blame Frank? Being a sincere revolutionary Shelley must have known that his death was the only possible one. I hate this damned revolution stuff, but even I can see that. After all, Shelley was the educated go-ahead member of the duet, so it’s feasible that he manipulated Dawley into the scrimmage of Algeria. Dawley’s more passive than you think — as malleable as hell.’
‘He hated Shelley,’ she said. But she didn’t sound convinced, and took the gun from her bag and offered it to him. It was the most beautiful picture he could wish to see. The handle was held towards him, harmlessly, and things were turning out all right at last.
The door rattled, and whoever it was hadn’t the patience to fully turn the knob. Then he had, because the force of the opening door hit her in the back, and pushed her forward. She was so much in line with the door that Cuthbert couldn’t see who it was. Despite the unexpected blow she kept hold of the gun, then looked with dislike and annoyance at Cuthbert, as if, being in such a hurry to get the gun, it was all his fault.
Ralph had evidently expected to find the place empty, and as he lurched crazily over the threshold, passing Maricarmen in his flight, a box of matches fell from his hand. Something had frightened him, and it wasn’t Maricarmen holding a gun, or Cuthbert standing angrily by the centre table. ‘What the hell do you want?’
Ralph was gasping from his frantic leap up the steps to the studio. His face was blotched red at the cheeks, lank hair slipping over his forehead. ‘They found the notebooks.’
‘Shut up,’ Cuthbert said. ‘Get out of here.’
‘Where were they?’ she asked, as if barely interested.
‘In Dawley’s caravan. But they’re going to put them in the garage.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I saw everything.’ He had been utterly confused at witnessing the unmistakable bundles carried by Handley and his two sons. He was dropping into madness again. The world swam with maggots in the head and throat and mouth of the dying hedgehog. His brain ached, as if it were going rotten. But he saw it, and believed it, and out of the putrefaction realised that he must have burned the wrong papers, and that they had by some means turned up in Dawley’s caravan. Without thinking he’d snatched a large box of kitchen matches and ran to Handley’s studio with the intention of setting it on fire and thereby creating a diversion which might give him time to think.